Changing strategies in grassroots canvassing

Abstract

Grassroots party contacts with voters have again become an important feature of presidential campaigns. In a bygone era, mobilization efforts were the work of local party organizations – the product of their various capabilities and needs and, consequently, less systematically patterned across the country. With the demise of these organizations, grassroots contacts declined, reaching only 18 percent of the electorate by 1992, before rebounding to over 40 percent by 2008. Using respondent reports of party contacts from the American National Election Studies, this article documents how the recent surge in mobilization is tied to the strategic priorities of the national parties and presidential campaigns. They concentrate their efforts on the most likely voters in the most competitive ‘battleground’ states, resulting in both positive and negative consequences for American democracy. In ramping up party contacts, who is contacted has changed, becoming more readily predictable, and the American electoral process has been transformed.