by Dean Briggs
PHILADELPHIA, JULY, 2024. Kamala has just announced her candidacy, and in this battleground state it is like electricity in the air. The numbers — of donations, of new volunteers, and of newly registered voters — are staggering. And on the stained, trash-strewn sidewalks around the transportation hub at 40th and Market Street, you can feel the excitement.
As a new voter registrar with Swing Blue Alliance, I’m joining a seasoned group of volunteers from Massachusetts and across the country for a week of voter registration and evening door-to-door canvassing. As we thread our way through the hurried crowds of commuters, many middle-aged and older people in this largely Black community see the Register to Vote! signs on the backs of our clipboards and give us thumbs-up. Some say, “Thank you for what you’re doing!” and quickly move on.
Each evening as we knock on doors — the most effective means of getting out the vote — we receive the same response from residents in the Brewerytown and Fishtown neighborhoods. Most are excited about Harris’ announcement, but some strong Biden supporters feel that he was pushed off the stage. They quickly add that they will support Harris.
Philadelphia is Pennsylvania’s Democratic stronghold, with over 778,000 registered in this eastern county; and getting out the vote here will be key to a Harris/Walz victory in 2024. But party voter registrations have shrunk in the state since 2008, while Republican and Independent registrations have grown. One reason is that voters in western Pennsylvania have increasingly turned Republican as union jobs have gone elsewhere.
Getting out the vote takes multiple conversations.
I am surprised by the number of young people who tell me that they aren’t registered to vote, “because it doesn’t matter.” A few older men are unregistered as well. I don’t recall having convinced anyone that their vote mattered. Our canvassing leaders have told us that it takes ten ‘touches’ to get a nonvoter to the polls, and I’m just one in the mix. Perhaps the next volunteer will be more effective, and I hope that the voters remember my conversation with them.
We quickly learn that it is equally as important to capture voter changes of address as it is to register voters, and we gather many, particularly from young people.
I am thrilled to be at the US Citizenship and Immigration office, registering new Americans to vote as they leave the building from their naturalization ceremony. They are dressed in their best clothes, carrying small American flags and large manilla envelopes; friends, relatives and children surround them. Everyone is beaming and taking pictures. “Congratulations!” we shout, and we, too, are filled with emotion.
Canvassing house-to-house in Brewerytown and Fishtown
Our job at the beginning of a months-long door knock campaign isn’t to rally the committed. Rather, it’s to check on the Democrats and Independents who haven’t voted recently, to see if they are still at the addresses we have.
Following the lists on our phones, we knock on hundreds of doors in the evening after work. We encounter vacant lots or new houses under construction, voters in their 80’s and 90’s who don’t answer the door, and people peeking through curtains. The Harris campaign has barely launched, so we leave quarter-sheet-sized literature that looks like it came from a computer printer.
While canvassing, we sign up a lot of volunteers — often random people who answer the door, people on the street, the wife of a pastor who is waiting for him in the car, the young woman who has new energy after seeing Kamala’s emergence.
Puzzling and concerning to me are evangelical Christians voting for Trump. Some tell us they are afraid that America’s adversaries will consider us weak for choosing a woman as president. Others say they are not impressed by the many examples we give of women running other countries. Many prefer Trump because he seems strong. We move on.
Midway through our week, the Brewerytown Harris Campaign office has page-size printed cards with pictures of the candidate. We offer them to people to put in their windows, and they are a hot ticket. We offered one to a 73-year-old woman, and when we came back down the street it was in her window.
I’m going back in late September, with Swing Blue Alliance.
Dean Briggs is a member of Indivisible Mass Coalition’s Communications Committee and Swing Blue Alliance.
