Not a big fan of phone banking, but have knocked doors in the rain and snow. So much for the latter this year. But there is reason to believe a tactic much-discussed lately — “deep canvassing,” even by phone — is more than just the flavor of the month:
The results of that experiment — shared with Rolling Stone ahead of their release on Tuesday — are striking: Even when done by phone, deep canvassing can indeed have a measurable effect on an individual’s voting preference. According to a study conducted by political-science professors David Broockman and Josh Kalla in partnership with People’s Action, this summer’s deep canvassing by phone led to a 3.1-point swing on average in favor of former Vice President Joe Biden. In other words, for every 100 completed phone calls, three votes were added to Biden’s vote margin after they received a deep canvassing call. That number was even higher for independents (5 points) and independent women (8.5 points), according to the study.
If those numbers seem small, bear in mind that Broockman and Kalla in a 2018 study found that the most common persuasion tactics used by partisan general election campaigns had an measurable effect of less than 1 percent and, in some cases, practically zero. Going by their research, deep canvassing by phone is estimated to be 102 times more effective than classic presidential campaign persuasion tactics like TV and radio advertising, direct mail, and brief door-to-door canvassing or phone banking.
The experiment was not a big sample: 700 phone calls to Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Kalla says, that while “these kinds of compassionate conversations were originally meant to happen in person, this new data shows that deep canvassing can still move the needle even when done over phone during a public-health crisis.”
Caveats: One study; over the phone; during a public-health crisis; 700 calls. But still. We know what doesn’t work. Ask Green and Gerber.
Andy Kroll continues:
Anat Shenker-Osorio, a progressive consultant whose work combines political strategy and psychological research, says deep canvassing seems to work because it tries to reach voters in a way that TV ads or traditional door-knocking don’t. “At some level, all of political messaging is ‘You should think this. You should think this. Here’s why, here’s why, and here’s why,’ ” she says. An honest, nonjudgmental conversation with someone who disagrees with you, however, is really an attempt to find a common ground and a connection, and to lead someone to their own conclusions, not batter them over the head with what you want them to believe, she says.
It helps if progressive volunteers are not bent on browbeating voters into submission with the power of their superior command of the facts or on checking off a voter’s level of support and hurrying on to the next call. Listening to them may not run up the numbers the national campaign wants to measure every night, but tally sheets don’t vote.
A summary from People’s Action is here.
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