Dear MoveOn member,
Last week, Bernie Sanders wrote to you with an important request. He said, “I know that you are receiving many requests for support. But I’m asking you to donate to MoveOn because they have the expertise to mobilize the precise voters needed to win.”
Just who are those voters, why are they so crucial, and why is MoveOn so well positioned to turn them out? We want to pull back the curtain on our get-out-the-vote plan so you understand what we’re doing and why.
If you already know about our work and are ready to power it through to the finish line, then please start a weekly donation below. If not, please read on for all of the details!
There are so many organizations doing important work this election. What makes MoveOn’s work unique?
At the end of 2023, we made the strategic decision to focus all of our work on turning out a very specific set of 1.5 million voters who we call “surge voters,” rather than spreading out our resources to a more generic voting audience. Surge voters are voters in battleground states and districts who are progressive but do not consistently vote, and research from elections in 2022 and 2020 has shown that these voters have consistently made the difference between Democrats winning and losing all across the country.
We targeted these voters in 2020 and 2022 as well, and data shows that we helped to turn out hundreds of thousands of voters who otherwise might have stayed home.
In an election that is likely to be decided by just a handful of votes spread across a few states, we believe that turning out even a fraction of these 1.5 million voters could be the difference between Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in the White House.
MoveOn is the only large national group focused solely on turning out this unique segment of voters.
Q: How did you identify these surge voters?
MoveOn’s in-house data scientists spent months analyzing reams of voter data to identify precisely which voters fall into our surge voter category, and then ensured that MoveOn actually had contact information for these voters. That led to the identification of our 1.5 million surge voter list.
Q: How do you reach these surge voters?
Research shows that these voters need to receive messages multiple times in order for them to have an impact, so MoveOn has developed a multichannel plan to reach surge voters exactly where they are.
Using more traditional methods, MoveOn volunteers have made nearly 600,000 calls to voters and sent 75,000 handwritten postcards with messages about why this election is so important.
Layered on top of that is our innovative “community vote tripling” work. We’ve used predictive models to determine exactly where within swing states there is the highest concentration of surge voters, and we are using that data to run in-person canvassing. Volunteers set up in high-traffic areas and ask people who have already voted or already have a plan to vote to text three friends or family members on the spot, helping them create their own voting plans as well. A randomized controlled trial of this tactic in 2022 showed that almost 25% of people reached by vote tripling had previously been unreachable after seven attempts: calling, knocking on their door, texting, you name it—without any reply at all.
But that’s not all! MoveOn is also running an advanced, highly targeted advertising campaign to make sure these voters are also seeing our message-tested and data-proven ads.
For example, if a surge voter in Wisconsin sees our economic justice ad on Instagram, we are then able to retarget the ad to them when they are watching Paramount+, and again when they visit the Associated Press website to read the news. And the precise targeting is tailored for each individual voter, ensuring that we are meeting them where they are and not wasting money on ineffective ad placement.
Q: Which states are you focused on?
Our initial list of Tier 1 target states for the presidential race was Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Nevada. Due to polling showing that North Carolina and the 2nd District of Nebraska are also within reach, we have recently added them to our Tier 1 target list.
Q: Are you working only on the presidential race?
No. Vice President Harris will need Democratic majorities in the House and Senate to enact her people-first policies, which is why MoveOn members have endorsed 23 Democratic candidates locked in the most competitive races in the House and five in the Senate, and we are also working to turn out voters to help them win.
Q: What is left to do before Election Day?
In short? Everything.
We need to not just keep up but ramp up all of our work until the moment that polls close on November 5.
That means daily phone banks with volunteers, in-person canvassing events in multiple states every weekend, pushing out our ads to more surge voters across every platform we can, and more. All while we continue to push back against the rampant misinformation being spread by Trump and his MAGA allies like Elon Musk.
The next 25 days are, without question, the most important weeks of the entire campaign.
Kendall, we can assure you that every dollar you donate to MoveOn is used with strategic precision to carry out these programs, turn out voters, and defeat Donald Trump.
We hope that you will join your fellow MoveOn members by starting a weekly donation to power this work all the way through to the finish line. Please give whatever you can, as every single dollar matters.
We are so grateful for your continued partnership and support.
Thanks for all you do.
–Mohammad, Allison, Alyssa, Kenia, and the rest of the team
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