Memo to Republicans: Field Canvassing and Early Voting Are Crucial to Winning Elections

Two recent stories on the 2022 elections offer cautionary tales for the major political parties and the people who identify with them.

The short version: ignore the noise and focus on getting out the vote.

The noise to ignore: polling. That’s hard to do in a world where political narratives are sometimes almost indistinguishable from betting lines. Polling has its uses, offering snapshots in time of select groups of voters. Independent polls with long track records, and transparent methodologies, tend to do better. Polls that check none of those boxes? Well, sometimes they blunder into the truth. Most of the time, their numbers aren’t worth it. And, as The New York Times reports, those dodgy polls can lead major parties to make horrendous tactical mistakes…like believing that a “red wave” was going to sweep the nation. That head fake caused real problems:

Surveys creating the misimpression of a red wave proved particularly useful to right-wing media outlets. Among their audience, evidence pointing to Republican victories and Democratic defeats was in high demand — particularly on Fox News.

The network’s own polling unit, respected throughout the news industry for its nonpartisanship and transparency, was not detecting a Republican wave. But in September, Sean Hannity’s prime-time show began showcasing the pollsters Robert Cahaly of Trafalgar and Matt Towery of InsiderAdvantage, who predicted that Republicans would take the contests in Pennsylvania, Arizona and Georgia, among other places.

Unmentioned was that the Fox News Poll, amply covered in the network’s straight-news programming, showed all those races leaning Democratic.

Those bad polls did one thing: they played a role in helping Democratic candidates raise money.

As for getting out the vote…Politico has a story that, once again, refutes the bizarre notion that’s taken hold on the populist right that early voting is bad and should be shunned:

[Vermont, Kentucky and Nevada] had divergent results but shared a few key things in common. Making it easier to vote early or by mail did not lead to voter fraud, nor did it seem to advantage Republicans or Democrats. In Kentucky, Republicans held on to five of the state’s six congressional districts and a Senate seat. Both Vermont and Nevada saw split-ticket voters decide statewide races, by a gaping margin in Vermont and a narrow one in Nevada.

It reflects a broad lesson for other states that might consider expanding voter access or encouraging voting before Election Day: While voting methods have become deeply polarized by party, expanding access to early and mail voting does not appear to benefit one party over the other. Republicans do not do themselves any favors when they follow in Trump’s footsteps and vilify early voting: It puts more onus on their voters to cast ballots on a single day.

But there is little evidence that expanding voter access tilts elections toward Democrats, either.

It’s as simple as meeting voters where they are and adapting GOTV strategies to fit their needs…not those of a campaign, its consultants or the candidate’s biases.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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