Democrats’ GOTV Hype Machine
Democrats’ vaunted voter turnout efforts have kicked into gear from Arizona to Wisconsin. Will it make a difference on Tuesday?
We really hate to say it… but… here goes: next Tuesday’s Election is going to come down to turnout. (It’s a cliché because it’s true!!)
In this week’s final pre-election day issue of FWIW, we’ll try to quantify the scale of Democrats’ turnout efforts heading into Election Day. How many events are Democrats hosting in key battleground states? How much activity is happening via text message or over the phone? We spoke with several key players to find out. But first…
By the numbers
FWIW, here were the top-spending political advertisers on Facebook + Instagram last week:
Facebook’s Election Week ad ban is officially in place, which means campaigns can no longer run new ad creative until after Election Day. That said, we’ll likely continue to see heavy spending from savvy advertisers who planned their advertising in advance and are running out the clock with existing ads.
One major advertiser in the past few weeks on Facebook has been Working America, which has spent a ton of money on some very basic stock photo ads in support of Democratic candidates up and down the ballot.
On the Right, a page called American Encore has been spending heavily to attack Mark Kelly in Arizona’s U.S. Senate race. The group spent over $200,000 last week boosting conservative, anti-Kelly “news” articles from a site called thepricklypear.org. As far as we can tell, that site is run by Arizona-based conservative activists.
Meanwhile, here were the top political advertisers on Google platforms last week, including YouTube:
Ohio Democrat Tim Ryan was the top-spending midterm candidate on Google and YouTube ads last week - which is a reminder that the Buckeye state’s U.S. Senate contest remains unbelievably close. Here’s just one of his closing ads:
For more on the state of Ryan’s race, check out this POLITICO Magazine piece from yesterday.
Political advertisers on Snapchat have spent $8.4 million this year - a major increase over previous years (excluding 2020). Campaigns and organizations have spent $5 million on the platform since the beginning of September. Here are the top spending advertisers year to date:
For premium subscribers, we provide detailed historical digital spending data in U.S. Senate, House, and Gubernatorial races.
Share your thoughts in the chat
What’s going to make or break Tuesday’s election results? Will Fetterman’s meme-first campaign strategy pay off? Can Lyin’ Kari Lake in Arizona be stopped?
This week, FWIW received early access to a brand new Substack “Chat” feature that’s pretty cool. Readers can post quick comments or ask questions about the newsletter or the internet + politics more broadly, and we’ll jump in to respond. You can click here to join the FWIW chat >>.
From around the internet
Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate and election denier Kari Lake received more Facebook engagement last week than any other midterm candidate nationwide. Her campaign grew her page’s audience by 30,000 followers - triple her opponent’s total audience size. More data here >>
Raphael Warnock’s digital team launched a new merch site featuring all of Herschel Walker’s greatest hits: “Covid Mist,” “Good Air from America,” and an Honorary Deputy badge, among others.
As we mentioned last week, President Obama’s team worked with the DNC to make some cameos on TikTok. Here’s another good one. Oh, and this one featuring President Biden has received over 9 million views.
CNBC reports that some major political advertisers have relied on Facebook advertising less this cycle. The Democratic Governors Association, for example, spent around 75% of its ad budget on the platform in 2020. This year, that figure is around 50%.
Democrats’ GOTV Hype Machine
The weekend before Election Day has always been a make-or-break time period for Democratic campaigns. It’s when everyone drops what they’ve been doing and tries to call, text, and canvass as many actual voters as possible to make sure they vote. On the Left, the mass recruitment, training, and mobilization of volunteers is a sophisticated affair - and in 2022, Democratic campaigns and progressive organizations are back pounding the pavement after largely abstaining from in-person events in 2020 due to the pandemic.
Campaigns across the country are pretty much using a single software platform to publicize all of their GOTV events and recruit volunteers to fill those shifts. Mobilize, founded in 2017 and acquired by Dem tech behemoth NGP VAN in 2020, is a volunteer and event management tool that serves as a clearinghouse for all organizing activity on the Left. Prospective volunteers can browse events in their area, sign up, and invite their friends to do so too. Campaigns get to easily create event pages and collect data on those volunteers. According to the company, over 5.5 million volunteers have used the platform since 2018.
Ahead of this weekend, we spent some time in Mobilize trying to quantify how many GOTV events (things like phone & text banks, canvasses) are being scheduled by campaigns and progressive allied organizations in key battleground states. Here’s a count of all scheduled events on Mobilize in a given state from 11/3 - 11/8:
In most battleground states, major statewide campaigns pool their field organizing programs with the state parties and form “coordinated campaigns” for GOTV efforts. We’ve seen that happen in Arizona with “Mission for Arizona,” in Pennsylvania with “All In PA,” and “ONECampaign for Michigan” in Michigan, among others. Those entities in turn are the ones hosting the most events heading into this weekend - and we’ve separated them out in light blue in the above chart.
In Florida, the most populous of the above battlegrounds, we’re seeing the most events being held by both the state party and outside organizations. Little Iowa has the least, but given the lack of attention to that state’s elections this cycle, it's still an impressive level of activity. In Wisconsin, where the state Democratic Party has built a reputation as a year-round organizing powerhouse, Team Blue has over 200 events planned.
According to Mobilize, around two-thirds of all Democratic events nationwide this weekend are in-person, while the rest are virtual. That is a recent development - the company says that before September, most events on the platform were being held online.
We don’t have comparable data on similar events in 2018, due to Mobilize being so new back then. But Caitlin Mitchell, the company’s President and SVP of Strategic Initiatives at NGP VAN told FWIW that she’s seeing some promising signs.
“Mobilize was so new in 2018, and at the time many campaigns were not using it yet. But what we've seen is a huge increase in activity from 2018 to now,” says Mitchell. “Understandably, we haven’t seen the same level of volunteer activity as in 2020, but we're seeing a ton of momentum and interest from new volunteers. Between the 2021 off-year elections and now, 1,000,000 more volunteers use the platform.”
When those millions of volunteers are signing up for shifts, they’re likely to end up phone banking or texting voters. Around 2,000 campaigns and progressive groups are using software called Scale to Win this cycle to manage that type of virtual voter contact.
“We had our texting volume double from September to October, and our call volume quadrupled over that same period as well,” Scale to Win Partner Nate Rifkin told FWIW.
Just in the first few days of November before Election Day, Rifkin says they’ll likely hit around 60% of October’s entire monthly activity on the platform - comparing high GOTV usage to corporate events like Amazon Prime Day or Black Friday. “That really speaks to the significant increase in volunteer engagement – there’s just a huge influx of volunteer energy coming into the final weeks of the campaign.”
Some Democrats have ditched traditional stranger-to-stranger approaches to organizing this cycle in favor of volunteers reaching out to their own personal networks and communities (which data has shown is more effective than most other tactics). It’s called “relational organizing,” and according to one strategist, it’s having a moment.
“This has been a huge cycle for relational organizing -- building programs around people talking to their own friends and family,” says Greta Carnes, co-founder of Relentless. “We know of relational programs happening on campaigns and in organizations across at least ten battleground states this year. A particular shout out to Iowa, where the Senate race is unexpectedly close -- and where they've been running a full volunteer-led relational organizing program across the state.”
Carnes’ approach is similar to what we heard from the team at Mobilize - a full 10% of volunteer sign-ups this cycle have come from friends directly inviting their own friends or family to join them in volunteering.
…so will all of this volunteer activity translate to votes?
It could at least help at the margins, says Rifkin. “In an election that everyone thinks is going to come down to the wire, being able to get those last few meaningful voter contacts in is more important than ever.”
One final “hard ask…”
That’s it for FWIW this week. We’re so grateful you’ve stuck with us this election cycle, and we hope you continue to get value from our data + insights. Before we go, we have one final “hard ask…”
These last few days of the election are going to be critical - and no matter where you live, you can get involved. Head over to Mobilize and find an event - a phone bank, text bank, friend bank, in-person canvass, whatever - and do your part to get pro-Democracy candidates across the finish line. 🇺🇸
thank you for extracting those data points from Mobilize etc. Probably the best news is the increase in in-person events.
Kyle,
The quality of GOTV depends on old school variables: good lists that are updated; solid trainers; committed volunteers. Lacking one or more, GOTV will strike out (take it from someone who has knocked on over 40,000 doors in 6 elections of my own..and other elections.