In terms of turnout, here are ten important things to harp on to get out the vote, according to a one republican wonk in 2002. I have been going through The Victory Lab , and Blaise Hazelwood’s name popped out of the conga-line of references to people in the book. Sascha Issenberg, the author, says she can work 18(!) hour days in perpetuity, which made my ears perk up. If somebody can do that they probably have something interesting to say. However, the only video of her on youtube has only 6 views. That’s some rare information! It comes from an event called the Wednesday Wake-up Breakfast, an event put on by the Leadership Institute Check it out

It seemed like the delicious cheesy filling of the presentation took place as a list of 10 ways to GOTV. GOTV is important because there aren’t too many swing voters anymore. In 2002, Blaise said the number was 7% of all voters, and FiveThirtyEight gives a similar figure here

1. People to people campaigning is the most important thing to turn out people - People don’t want to campaign for a candidate, they want to campaign for a cause
2. Having organizers local to the places you want to change votes (precinct captains) is important - Having somebody on the ground in a precinct for a month contributes to ~3% in the polls
3. Have a hand in voter registration - You have to talk to people who are newly registered because they haven’t had time to form opinions yet
4. Microtarget air campaigns and direct mail/phone - Using volunteers is much more reliable than using paid calls (5%) - Talking to people about issues which are important to them, is very important. This needs to be more than just a piece of mail, they need to be hit with this information repeatedly.
5. Absentee and early voting drive votes that wound’t come out otherwise
6. Planning the final 72 hours long before-hand - Door hangers the Monday before the election - Take a tally of who has come out and voted already and getting the people who have not out to vote

Information pulled from Blaise Hazelwood’s talk