Why Phonebanking?

There are five main reasons why we at Sister District emphasize this particular tactic throughout each election cycle.

1. Best remote option for voter contact: The research bears out what campaign organizing experts tell us: speaking with voters is the best way to identify, persuade, and motivate them to cast ballots for our candidates. And indeed, you’ll notice scripts change over the course of an election cycle as directed by goals of: identifying and/or persuading, and/or motivating voters to turn out. From a remote position, phonebanking is #1.

Example: Let’s say you find an undecided voter and tag them as such in the phonebank system. The next day, the campaign’s Organizer can pull a list of all undecided voters, hand it to her most persuasive local volunteer (may be the candidate in some cases) to have follow-up conversations.

See: SDAN Field Research Overview 

2. It’s what our candidates ask for: To help with voter contact, field directors, campaign managers, and candidates ask us to focus primarily on speaking with their voters.
   
   

3. An opportunity to recruit locally: Conversation is also the best way for us to help recruit local volunteers. 

4. Cleans the lists: Conversation (or being stopped short of conversation) helps us “clean” the campaign’s voter list so local volunteers and mailers connect with the right voters with the right messages at the right times. 

Example: Let’s say you find a Republican who will never ever vote for your candidate. You tag that person as such in the system. When the campaign pulls up a list of voters for canvassing the next weekend, that voter won’t be on that list. This prevents a campaign organizer or local volunteer from wasting time with someone who won't vote with us, and frees up time to speak with others who might.

See: Phonebank. It’s Worth It.

5. Frees up time for local volunteers: The calls we make are calls local volunteers don’t have to make. This means that campaigns can put more - - and in some cases nearly all - - of their local volunteers “on the doors.” This is ideal since face-to-face conversations with voters is our #1 tactic overall. 

Case Study: In 2019, Sister District endorsed Pam Lovino in a PA State Senate special election. Our volunteers made 100% of the phone calls her field director needed to reach as part of the campaign’s field plan. This meant the campaign was able to put all local volunteers on the doors. Pam won that race by 4 points and took over a seat that had been controlled by Republicans for five decades.