The National Journal has a must read article on the unveiling of the strategy being employed by America Votes, the round table of Democratic Party affilliate groups, in targeted states around the nation. Amongst the targeted states--New Mexico.
Today, America Votes kicking of a training of sorts in Albuquerque at the Plumbers and Pipe Fitters, where affiliate organizations on the ground in New Mexico will be presenting overviews on targeting, Get Out The Vote (GOTV) activities and discussing the unique challenges campaigns face in New Mexico.
If you want to really understand the divide within the Democratic Party, then you need to read this article.
Link: THE HOTLINE: Know Thy Voter (09/15/06).
A sophisticated and previously unrevealed experiment by Democratic interest groups could provide Democratic candidates in as many as nine states with an unanticipated edge in the November elections.
If the state modeling projects work, America Votes hopes to set up a similar effort in every battleground state in 2008.
America Votes, a roundtable of the nation's top liberal membership groups, is coordinating a multimillion-dollar program to boost Democratic turnout using the same voter modeling method mastered by Republicans in 2004.
"The goal here is to once again bring 'field' into the column of the progressive community," said Jano Cabrera, a senior adviser to the project.
EMILY's List, which raises money to help elect Democratic women, is in the catbird seat for two states: Michigan and Minnesota, both of which feature competitive gubernatorial and senate races. Other members of America Votes plan to employ the project in Ohio, Colorado, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. And so-called "robust" voter lists will also be provided to program members in Arizona, New Hampshire and New Mexico.
Catalist, a private information firm founded by veteran Democratic strategist Harold Ickes, is providing the raw data. The firm has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to add demographic and commercial data to entries for each voter, often purchasing the information from information vendors.
In Michigan, EMILY's List asked Garin Hart Yang, a Democratic polling firm, to survey more than 12,000 Michigan voters with an in-depth battery of lifestyle and issue questions. From the massive poll, EMILY's List and Garin Hart Yang were able to profile distinct clusters of voters. These groups were then given names like Educated Postgraduate Democrats or Downscale Union Independents. Each cluster was scored for how likely it'd support Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, their affinity toward the Democratic Party and the likelihood they will vote.
Then, using reams of the appended demographic data, each of more than 6.7 million names on the statewide voter file was given a score that corresponded to the clusters they most closely matched. Based on the cluster score, voters will be targeted with precise appeals. The project aims to increase turnout statewide, not just in traditionally Democratic counties like Wayne, but in heavily conservative areas of Western Michigan, and Oakland and Macomb counties in the east.
If the state modeling projects work, America Votes hopes to set up a similar effort in every battleground state in 2008. Officials at Catalist, America Votes and EMILY's List will unveil the program to major Democratic donors. Similar efforts are under way at the Democratic National Committee, which has spent more than $6 million to craft robust voter files for state parties, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which has modeled clusters of voters in its targeted states, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
In 2005, the DNC worked with the Virginia Democratic Party, then-Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine's gubernatorial campaign and a private firm called Copernicus Analytics to identify Democrats who had voted for Sen. John Kerry in 2004 but not for then-Gov. Mark Warner in 2001. Kaine saw his turnout increase more than 40 percent among those so-called drop-off voters. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's re-election campaign has employed the same microtargeting firm, Copernicus Analytics, to help them find new voters in New York.
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