Notes from the Ground Game
Knocking on Doors for Kamala Harris in Georgia
To hear the related 5-minute audio file that I uploaded today as my Morning Journalflash briefing for Alexa devices, please click on the play button:
Meet Lawrence
One of the last doors Darlene and I knocked on yesterday here in Georgia was on Pink Dogwood Lane in Pooler, about 12 miles northwest of Savannah.
My Get Out The Vote (GOTV) iPhone app showed a single name at the address, Lawrence M. McDonald. The code said 28M, meaning Lawrence was male, 28 years old. No party affiliation listed.
“Are you Lawrence?” I asked the African American man who answered the door. He had a twinkle in his eye as soon as he spotted our HARRIS WALZ t-shirts and Sophie on her turquoise leash beside us.
“Lawrence!” he yelled back into the house. “It’s time to VOTE!”
The man at the door was our target’s son, who came to greet us as his Dad stepped aside.
Lawrence said yes, he was certainly going to vote for Kamala Harris.
“I plan to early-vote tomorrow,” he assured us.
We knew this was a bad plan, because early voting yesterday had already ended. We told Lawrence he would have to wait until Election Day on November 5th. “Voting starts at 7 a.m. and ends at 7 p.m.,” we said.
“Do you know your polling place?” Darlene asked.
He did not.
“It’s the West Chatham YMCA,” I said.
“That’s where I work out,” Lawrence said.
“Can you vote there first thing Tuesday?” I asked. No, he said, because of his job. He gets off in the afternoon.
“Can you vote on the way home?” I asked.
“Yes, I’ll do that,” Lawrence replied.
Darlene afterward said she thought I had leaned in a little too hard, but I was excited to be talking with a real, live voter who needed help making a plan.
“We drove all the way from Maine to ask you to vote,” I told Lawrence. Which is sort of true, though we would have made the drive with or without the election as part of our return to Sanibel for the winter.
I resisted the temptation to give Lawrence, a young man who towered above me, a hug as we left.
I knew his Dad was going to make sure Lawrence followed through with his promise to vote. There were smiles all around as we walked back down the driveway to our car.
Of the 38 people we reached out to yesterday, 17 were not home and received bright blue Kamala door tags. Fifteen had moved. Four said they are voting for Kamala, and one had already voted. I know that doesn’t add up to 38, but those are the stats I found in the app at the end of our shift.
The last address on our list was on Yellow Jasmine Ct., where Ja’terra Scott, 35F, was listed. The lady who greeted us at the door said she had moved.
“This is our last house today,” I told her. “Could you take a photo of us?”
She was glad to oblige, and the photo above is the one she took. I’m sorry I didn’t get her name.
As we returned to our hotel here in Savannah this evening after two more shifts of canvassing, we listened to the Hacks on Tap podcast. David Axelrod, Mike Murphy, and John Heileman mentioned numerous times how strong the ground game has been for Harris across the battleground states.
“That’s us!” I shouted as we drove.
The Harris campaign has mobilized more than 40,000 volunteers coordinated by a staff of 220 operating out of 32 field offices across Georgia. Collectively, we have knocked on more than a million doors, according to the Associated Press.
When the returns come in tomorrow night, I will appreciate the massive effort that went into the campaign. And I will remember meeting Lawrence and his Dad on Pink Dogwood Lane in Pooler, Georgia.
David Axelrod, a veteran of many Presidential campaigns, got as misty as I’ve heard him in a long time as he and his hackeroos ended today’s show.
“I love this shit, man,” Axe said. “I just can’t be more excited…there’s something awesome about watching the wheels of this big, mighty whatever it is turn.”
What I’ve loved on this trip is the chance to be a small cog in one of those wheels, knocking on doors and leaving door hangers on doorknobs in North Carolina and Georgia. It’s a good antidote for the nameless dread I have often felt following this election in the media.
Political tourism? Maybe.
Or maybe it’s just a great way to maintain belief in America leading up to the first Tuesday in November.
Great photo and fine work
Great field work, you two!