Why GOTV Matters, Even in States Where Major Races

[0rganism]

5. imho, it's the coverage

for major races, we have national networks that cover every stupid detail ad nauseum. they'll even spend hours speculating on the prospects of candidates for races 2+ years away. huge HYPE machine.

for local races, like school boards and state reps, if you live in a metro area you might just have a local network affiliate or three which cover the race in the last 4 weeks or so, or more if a particularly juicy scandal shows up. Coverage tends to land somewhere between the charming human interest stories and high-school athletics, of course.

OTOH, if you live in a small-to-middling town or the rural boonies, good luck getting any local election coverage at all. Maybe there's a newspaper that covers it, on the facing page from the obituaries, or it could get some play on public access cable. Of course turnout is depressed there, no one knows about the elections, plus municipal bond measures are boring and complicated. That's one reason the republicans thrive in rural America.

successful rural GOTV campaigns are the GOP's worst nightmare.