Hi John,
We wanted to share a quick example of why our new canvassing program, Ground Truth, matters—and the kind of impact this community can have if we’re able to scale up this work heading into next year.
In 2024, Democrats lost a key battleground House race, Iowa’s 1st Congressional District, by just 799 votes—a margin so thin that the right voter contact program could’ve changed the outcome.
In that race, 45% of active voters in the district—about 207,000 people—were considered to be in the lowest third of Democratic support scores. While Democratic field efforts typically ignore this group completely, the reality is that to win, the Democrat needed to receive 10-15% of their total votes from this group of voters.
To close a 799-vote gap (and flip this seat to help win the House in 2026), Democrats would only need to shift support among this group of “low-support” voters by a tiny fraction.
Even if only 1 in 5 voters in this group were reachable (~40k voters), identifying and turning out just 2% of those reachable voters could’ve changed the outcome of the race.
This case study is further proof that voter outreach needs to begin earlier and include everyone. Because by engaging widely, we can identify that important group of voters that is reachable and potentially persuadable—who have been mislabeled or underrepresented in data models—and successfully re-engage voters who feel overlooked.
That’s exactly what Ground Truth is meant to accomplish. Earlier this year we piloted Ground Truth canvasses in select battleground districts across the country, and last month we announced that we’re expanding the program to all of our target districts nationwide.
But running a program like this—which emphasizes starting earlier than ever and talking to every voter in swing districts—takes a lot of resources, and we’re counting on support from this community to help make it happen.
Thank you for your support,
The Swing Left Team
P.S. If you’d rather give your time to this program, that’s super valuable, too. Whether you donate or not, we’d love for you to join the “Inside Ground Truth” national strategy call on December 9th, where we’ll share more ways to get involved.
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Since 2017, Swing Left has channeled the energy of grassroots volunteers and donors to elect Democrats, up and down the ballot, focusing on the most competitive races that can swing the national balance of power. Right now, Swing Left is investing in early grassroots organizing in key swing districts and initiatives across the country to lay the foundation to win back the House in 2026. If you’d like to help support our work, you can make a donation using this link. |
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