A Plan to Retake Congress in 2018 Midterm [View all]

[FredZim]

I would like to propose a “campaign” for Democrats to retake Congress in 2018. This campaign is less to do with finding a new hot button issue to motivate voters or discovering a more motivating candidate. This campaign is a way for everyday Democrats to reach out to our fellow Americans to show up to vote in the 2018 midterms. This is still a rough idea so there will be ways to improve upon but I would like to get my fellow Democrats feedback if this is a good idea.

The campaign is based on the fact that 3 to 4 million American jobs are based on tips. This number includes restaurant wait staff, Uber and Lyft drivers, pizza delivery etc. The majority of these employees are millennials or gen-Xers, a demographics that leans Democratic but has poor voter turnout, particularly in midterms. Democrats are known as both good tippers and regular consumers of these services. The fundamental goal of this campaign is to teach Democrats how to engage these employees in a brief and positive way of the importance of registering to vote and following through with voting. I see Democrats “evangelizing” these employees on voting, to briefly explain this campaign and then follow through with generous tipping at 20% plus.

Creating a campaign brand may help with the conversation. I was thinking of something like TipTheVote.org. And possibly encourage the use of buttons and stickers of “I Will Vote 2018”.

I see the conversation as brief, asking if they voted and/or are they registered to vote. And if they plan to vote in 2018. No need to talk about parties or issues unless they want to. But also ask if they heard of the campaign. Of course giving a generous tips helps with your likability.

There are 72 million registered Democrats. If we assume this campaign was popular, say 5% would become active in the campaign that is 3.6 million or roughly 1 to 1 with the number of employees. If we also assume 2 conversations a week and it would be a nice frequency to reinforce the conversation without being overbearing. The exact number of impressions is hard to predict but if this ran for most 2017 and 2018, I believe almost all these employees would be engaged numerous times.

Note: The “I Will Vote 2018” may also be a conversation starter in other social interactions we have.

I’m not sociologist or marketing expert but I would think that if Democrats were mobilized to reach out to this important voting contingency and motivating them for the midterm it could have a powerful results.

Again this is just a rough idea but your thoughts?

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