The Republican GOTV Machine....It's Flaky

[displacedyankeedem]

I've been looking at the Republican GOTV plan, and can I say that at the very least it seems mighty flaky to me from what I can piece together.

It's heavily dependent on a good church turnout on 31 October. Bad weather in the industrial midwest as well as Florida on that day has the potential to throw it out of whack from the beginning.

It's also overly dependent on being able to pull people out of heavily Republican exurban communities such as those which surround Atlanta on the I-285 beltway. That's how they were able to drive both Barnes and Cleland out of office in 2002. Problem for them is that there aren't places like this in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Iowa, and there are only a few in West Virginia (those that feed into the DC area). Basing your entire GOTV plan on sunbelt demographics is a dumbass idea if you ask me.

Finally, where their exurb model does hold true in Colorado, Florida, and Nevada, are all places where we have made massive gains in voter registration, cutting into the advantage that they used to have within these states. In NV, registered Democrats now outnumber registered Republicans. I think that we're dead even in Colorado (which I believe used to be + 100,000 GOP), and I believe that we're now ahead in FL (although I worry about Reagan Democrats in places like the panhandle).

[Awsi Dooger]

1. Is their GOTV plan outlined somewhere?

If it's a website, please link. I would like to take a look also.

[displacedyankeedem]

2. Here's part of it

http://www.newdonkey.com/2004/09/three-votes-and-cloud-of-dust.html

[Awsi Dooger]

8. Thanks

I remember following the Georgia strategy in 2002. That little prick Ralph Reed was on Jon Stewart today so I couldn't even watch. There is one DUer who was a college professor at Georgia and had Ralphie in a class. He posts some wonderfully belittling appraisals of Reed from time to time.

[tedoll78]

3. What I'd really like..

Is a nice rainstorm to hit northwestern Florida for about 5 or 6 hours on Election Day. If that happens, I'm willing to guarantee that we carry the state (assuming a fair vote count..).

[displacedyankeedem]

4. Southwest Ohio too?

nail the Cincinnati area good?

[tedoll78]

5. I'd happily take either one.

We only need one of those two. But if we can get a twofer deal, hooray! hehe..

edit: the funny thing.. I remember watching the weather forecasts in 2000 and worrying about a little bit of rain in Miami that morning. So sad. That might've been the difference right then and there.

[displacedyankeedem]

6. Will the Hurricane Damage have a positive effect for us

Heavily Republican NW Florida is still reeling from Ivan(if I'm not confused), while our areas of the state (the Palm-Beach-Miami corridor, as well as Orlando) are largely intact.

[tedoll78]

7. There's always a danger in that..

.. people will get fed-up while waiting for emergency goods and services to arrive. There was a post floating around here today giving firsthand accounts of how folks in the path of Jeanne are getting frustrated already with those who are managing the recovery.

Also something to remember: the hurricanes hit GOP areas more than they did Dem areas. There's a famous map circulating that shows the path of three of the hurricanes, with the counties colored red and blue to show whom they voted for in 2000. While the map has been debunked, you can still plainly see that the GOP areas took a harder beating than the Dem areas overall. If these folks are too busy rebuilding their lives to vote (or if they're displaced into another state or city or whatever), it could put a dent in turnout in key GOP areas. And as we learned in 2000, a tiny amount might decide this thing again..

Still, I'm more convinced that new voter registration will help us more than anything else when it comes to Florida. We're up 60%, while the GOP is only up 12%. This shows that our ground game is clearly superior this year, which is a dramatic reversal of past ground war advantage trends.

[roseBudd]

16. SW Ohio here

I can tell you MoveOn PAC, ACT, VoteMOb, ACORN, Voting is Power are all here.

WE got them registered now we need to close the deal.

Spread the TWO-FACED graphic!

go to http://somnamblst.tripod.com to download files to print

[AndyTiedye]

9. Their Real Georgia 2002 (and 2004) Strategy Was...

[Lexingtonian]

10. It'll be interesting

It's heavily dependent on a good church turnout on 31 October. Bad weather in the industrial midwest as well as Florida on that day has the potential to throw it out of whack from the beginning.

They've got phone banks, church directories, and all that media, though.

It's also overly dependent on being able to pull people out of heavily Republican exurban communities such as those which surround Atlanta on the I-285 beltway. That's how they were able to drive both Barnes and Cleland out of office in 2002.

Still, for the massiveness of the turnout effort they did they eked out very small margins of victory. And this in a state that was split 56/44 in their favor at the time (now more like 54/46). I was more impressed with the turnout for the two House districts.

Problem for them is that there aren't places like this in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Iowa, and there are only a few in West Virginia (those that feed into the DC area). Basing your entire GOTV plan on sunbelt demographics is a dumbass idea if you ask me.

Weeellll...Wisconsin, Iowa, and Ohio have rural/semirural enclaves that are very Christian Right and B/C '04 has worked very hard to drive turnout up in then. That's why Bush campaigns in these larger rural towns rather than the cities in the region. All three are running 2-4% more Republican in Likely Voter pollings than those states ought to be by trend from 2000. Today's poll that has Ohio for Kerry by 49-46 among Registered Voters but for Bush by 50-47 (or something like that) among Likely Voters is pretty typical. (IOW, Republicans have gotten 3% more of the electorate to turn out for them, taken from the ~50% of the electorate that usually doesn't vote.)

Btw, polling companies call up RVs from lists that are a few months old, so their numbers reflect very little of how newly registered voters are going, though. This year it seems Republicans did the great majority of their registration and large parts of the preparation for their turnout effort prior to their Convention- as early as April/May- so that their newbies would tune in to their Fuhrer's Big Speech For The True Believers. Democratic 527s and such put off much of their registration drives during August to put their money/effort into ads supporting Kerry- so the newly registered Democratic leaning voters are coming in much later and are going to be much more invisible in the polling than the new Republican registrees.

Finally, where their exurb model does hold true in Colorado, Florida, and Nevada, are all places where we have made massive gains in voter registration, cutting into the advantage that they used to have within these states. In NV, registered Democrats now outnumber registered Republicans. I think that we're dead even in Colorado (which I believe used to be + 100,000 GOP), and I believe that we're now ahead in FL (although I worry about Reagan Democrats in places like the panhandle).

The Salazar brothers and activist Hispanic Democrats have gotten Hispanic voters in Las Vegas and southern Colorado/Denver who previously resisted political participation to become active voters this year. (Democrats made efforts to get them active every election cycle for the past 8-10 years, without much success.) Electorate sizes in all the states of the Southwest are up by 5-10% this year if not more and that has to be playing havoc with Republican planners. Arizona is off everyone's radar, but Nevada/Colorado/New Mexico have shifted such an amount (4-5%) toward Democrats since 2000 that Arizona can't be far behind. Democrats should break 48% there.

Exurbs are large areawise but don't have as large populations as they appear (IME); I suspect Democratic drift in suburbia is easily outpacing any improvements Republicans can make in performance in exurbia in sheer number of votes.

The Republican story is that they're running short on non-bright white middle class people. That fact forces them into this gamble and piecemeal-ish plan of action. If you have a close look at the Vanity Fair article on Florida 2000 and what Jebbie and his minions are doing there to steal the state's election this year, the reality it reflects between the lines is that they've probably already run painfully short of that kind of voter in the state. Kerry has been tied or ahead almost all of this year in the respectable pollings, and by trend it's a 52% Democratic/47% Republican state this year- at equal rates of turnout. But the messiness of it all on their end is what happens when your party has more than enough money but only minority support in the population as a whole.

[Awsi Dooger]

12. Excellent post, very informative per usual

I'm going to steal plenty of that and paste it into my Excel notes on voting trends for individual states.

My only beef is your description of the Georgia races in 2002. Those wren't exactly eeked out, by my memory. I thought it was Cleland losing by 7 and Barnes by 6.

[Lexingtonian]

13. I'm flattered

You're right, I thought I remembered these as 51/48s or thereabouts,


http://www.sos.state.ga.us/elections/election_results/2002_1105/summary.htm

UNITED STATES SENATOR

100 % of precincts reporting

MAX CLELAND (D) 931,857 45.9 %
SAXBY CHAMBLISS (R) 1,071,153 52.8 %
SANDY THOMAS (Lib) 26,981 1.3 %

GOVERNOR

100 % of precincts reporting

ROY E. BARNES (D) 937,062 46.3 %
SONNY PERDUE (R) 1,041,677 51.4 %
GARY HAYES (Lib) 47,122 2.3 %

[displacedyankeedem]

15. So it's agreed that Georgia

cannot generally be replicated by the Republicans in battleground states?

[Warren DeMontague]

11. A big outbreak of hoof-in-mouth disease

Could put a serious Dent in the Horse and Buggy Neo-Luddites who seem to make up Bush's base.

[eridani]

14. Touch screen cheating threw Barnes and Cleland out n/t