Dear MoveOn member,
At the beginning of the year, we knew our top priority in 2020 would be
defeating Donald Trump for re-election. In fact, we'd spent much of 2019
planning for this fight.
Then COVID-19 hit, and most of the grassroots tactics we planned to use
went straight out the window.
Indoor rallies? Can't do it. Not safe. Meetups at people's homes and
coffee shops? Forget it. All of the tried-and-true tactics for contacting
voters and getting out the vote suddenly had to be scrapped, forcing us to
reinvent our entire campaign model while staring down the most dangerous
election of our lives.
Then something amazing happened: We found a campaign approach that's not
only safe but as much as 10 times more effective than what we've done in
the past.^1
We're calling it "polling place vote mobilization," and if we can raise
enough money to go really big, it has the potential to increase Biden's
share of the vote in critically important swing states and tip the key
races needed to end Mitch McConnell's control of the Senate—all while
keeping all of us safe and healthy.
With only 30 days to go in the election, will you start a $3 weekly
donation right now to help run this game-changing program in the most
important battleground states? (MoveOn will bill your weekly donation to
your credit card once a month starting today and will contact you shortly
after the election to see if you want to modify or cancel your weekly
donation.)
[ [link removed] ]Count me in.
[ [link removed] ]No, I'm sorry, I can't chip in weekly.
Here's how polling place vote mobilization works:
On Election Day in heavily Democratic precincts in key battleground
states, organizers stand outside polling places, speak to voters as they
come out, and ask them to text their friends, urging them to vote as
well.
It's that simple. Several organizers can team up to cover a single polling
place, and as more and more people start texting, one single organizer can
typically generate 40-50 voter contacts per hour—10 times what they would
get going door to door or calling on the phone. It works at in-person
early voting places too, which many states allow.
There are a few key reasons why this works so well:
1. It's much more effective for a voter to be contacted by a friend than
by a campaign or a stranger. When a friend asks if you've voted yet
and what your plan is, there's a subtle but powerful social influence
because of the implied accountability if you get "caught" not doing
what you said you were going to do. Many studies have shown that this
is effective.^2
2. People are most willing to contact their friends and urge them to vote
right after they've voted themselves. Think about it: When you go to
vote and put on that little sticker, it feels really good, right? If
it's an important election, you probably walk out of the polling place
feeling pretty pumped. It's something researchers call a "civic high,"
and if we can contact tens of thousands of voters right at that
moment, the results will be huge.
3. It's safe. Volunteers can do this while wearing a mask, avoid engaging
voters who aren't masking, and still contact plenty of people.
When COVID-19 hit, we were hoping that we'd be able to come up
with socially distanced tactics that would be at least close to as
effective as door-to-door canvassing. But they say necessity is the mother
of invention, and when we were forced to scrap our plans and start over,
we came up with something even better.
Will you start a $3 weekly donation to help fund this groundbreaking
get-out-the-vote strategy? (MoveOn will bill your weekly donation to your
credit card once a month starting today and will contact you shortly after
the election to see if you want to modify or cancel your weekly donation.)
[ [link removed] ]Count me in.
[ [link removed] ]No, I'm sorry, I can't chip in weekly.
Listen, John, the latest polls show that this election is
still way too close to call in key battleground states like Florida and
Arizona. Polling experts say Trump still has about a 20% chance of winning
this election, and a 20% chance of four more years of Trump is way too
much.^3
This isn't just a contest between Trump and Biden; democracy itself is on
the ballot. If there was any remaining doubt, Tuesday's debate confirmed
it.
We are 100% committed to winning this election—and doing so without
putting MoveOn members at risk. Polling place vote mobilization is the
perfect breakthrough we needed to do just that.
Start a $3 weekly donation now to help power our nationwide polling place
voter mobilization effort to defeat Donald Trump and stay safe at the same
time. (MoveOn will bill your weekly donation to your credit card once a
month starting today and will contact you shortly after the election to
see if you want to modify or cancel your weekly donation.)
[ [link removed] ]Count me in.
[ [link removed] ]No, I'm sorry, I can't chip in weekly.
Thanks for all you do.
–Kate, Dom, Nick, Tzyh, and the rest of the team
Sources:
1. "The Power of List-based Polling Place Vote Tripling,"
VoteTripling.org, accessed October 1, 2020
[link removed]
2. "Affect, Social Pressure and Prosocial Motivation: Field Experimental
Evidence of the Mobilizing Effects of Pride, Shame and Publicizing Voting
Behavior," Yale ISPS Political Behavior, 2010
[link removed]
3. "Biden is favored to win the election," FiveThirtyEight, October 2,
2020
[link removed]
Want to support our work? As Robert Reich says, "No organization in
America has a better track record of success in developing cutting-edge
strategies to get out the vote and win elections than MoveOn." But it will
take each of us doing our part to defeat Trump and flip the Senate!
Will you chip in $3 a week to help MoveOn combat right-wing lies, make
sure every vote is counted, and win this election?
[ [link removed] ]Count me in.
[ [link removed] ]No, I'm sorry, I can't chip in weekly.
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