DEBATE NIGHT — Forget the Performance, the Polls & the Pundits: Here's how Trump can lose BIGLY in November
Polling results are insignificant compared to the actual voter turnout.
By Peter List, Editor | September 10, 2024
Whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, whether you love Donald Trump or hate him (or Kamala Harris, for that matter), what the polls tell us on any given day doesn’t mean squat.
Over the weekend, a “Splashy New NYT/Siena Survey” showed Trump ahead nationally by four points. However, for those who actually run campaigns, they know that elections are won or lost by who (and by how many) show up to vote.
“We have a well-oiled organizing machine in every state, especially in battleground states.” — AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler
Considering November’s elections, one would be wise to remember the 2022 “red wave” that never appeared from the mid-term elections. Despite all expectations, it turned out that the “red wave” barely made a ripple.
“Democrats outperformed history and expectations with a surprisingly strong midterm elections performance Tuesday, with the promised red wave nowhere to be found.” reported Vox the day after the red wave never materialized.
The reason for the lack of a political sea change wasn’t due to a lack of enthusiasm by Republicans—though there is an argument there as well—it was due to Democrats getting their voters to the polls much more effectively than the Republicans did.
GOTV = Get Out The Vote
Getting out the vote is crucial for a party or candidate to win an election. Democrats and their allies are simply better at strategizing, planning, and executing GOTV compared to the GOP.
While Democrats understand GOTV, Republicans seemingly do.not.
The last three election cycles. In explaining Republican defeats in 2018, 2020 and 2022, Justin Levitt told the American Prospect’s Robert Kuttner that “more low-propensity voters turned out for Democrats, particularly in those three elections.”
Without a ground game, 2024 turnout is likely to turn out the same for Trump and the Republicans as the last three election cycles and, while Trump voters may be passionate, their passion does not beat a good ground game.
“In a tied race, the importance of getting out one’s voters becomes that much more critical,” the Daily Kos reported on Tuesday. “Yet while Democrats continue to build a robust field program, Republicans have failed to follow.”
“Literally the first thing Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump did after the former president’s takeover of the Republican National Committee in late April was fire everyone in its field operation, and scrap plans to open 40 field offices in the battleground states,” Koz explains.
The Unions’ Ground Game
For union leaders, after four years of having “the most pro-union administration in American history” doing their bidding, the possibility of Donald Trump returning to the White House, along Republicans controlling Congress, poses an existential threat.
As a result, the AFL-CIO and several individual unions (like the AFT and SEIU) endorsed Biden and Harris’ reelection campaign last year—much earlier than unions normally would.
When unions endorse individual candidates, it enables them to spend political action committee monies on advertising and get out the vote effort of individual candidates.
“We are the ones who are going to decide this presidential election. In swing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Nevada that are going to come down to 1% or 2%, union voters are 20% of the electorate., AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler stated last week. “That’s one in every five voters.”
Despite Democrats kicking Biden off the ticket in July, once endorsements had been made in 2023, the AFL-CIO and its member unions began to mobilize.
Had Harris failed to be appointed to the top of the ticket, it would have been trickier for unions to switch their ground-game operations without formerly re-endorsing whoever would have been chosen as the nominee.
“Talking with reporters after her second annual State of the Unions address,“ People’s World reported in late August. “Shuler said the federation and its unions will send tens of thousands of volunteers, plus paid staffers, into the field prior to the voting.”
That includes 200 Steelworkers headquarters staffers already sent, with more, plus volunteers to follow, says Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond, a Steelworker.
For many union officials and their members, getting time off of work to campaign is built into their union contracts (called “union business” in the private sector and “release time” in the public sector).
Turning Red States Blue
As with most presidential elections these days, all eyes turn to those states referred to “swing states.”
This year, there are seven states the media refers to as swing states, and that is where unions are focusing their efforts.
The union strategy is to physically send organizers and volunteers from reliably blue states into the swing states to canvass to turn out the vote and, as well, to do phone banking from their home states.
The strategy was very effective in 2020 in Arizona, where Los Angeles’ UNITE-HERE Local 11, sent organizers to Arizona to help turn the state blue for Biden.
However, 2020 was not the first time. California’s UNITE-HERE local has been active in Arizona since at least 2007, according to The Nation.
By 2013, they had turned the nine-member [Phoenix City] council blue, and in 2019, they succeeded in getting one of their own, a fiery union organizer and onetime hotel housekeeper named Betty Guardado, elected as a councilwoman representing the sprawling Maryvale district. They played a key role in unseating Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio in 2016, after narrowly failing to defeat him four years earlier. They returned again to help Kyrsten Sinema win her US Senate seat in 2018.
Unions’ ground games include phone banking.
During the expected “red wave” in 2022, Georgia’s Senate race went to a runoff election between the Democrat Rev. Ralph Warnick and his Republican opponent Herschel Walker.
That is when the Florida AFL-CIO called upon its members to begin working the phones for Warnock.
“Members, staff, and volunteers with the Florida AFL-CIO are dedicating time to reach out to our Union sisters and brothers in Georgia to ensure that they make their voices heard,” the Florida AFL-CIO stated.
As there were other factors at play—including former President Trump’s questionable actions, which may have dampened turnout—Warnock’s win cannot be solely attributed to the Florida AFL-CIO’s efforts. However, member-to-member cannot be underestimated either.
“It’s the ground game, stupid.”
This year, as with prior years, Democrats and their allies—including unions—are light years ahead of Republicans.
“Observers have noted that the Keystone State is the keystone of the Harris/Walz campaign,” the Daily Kos observed last week. “Without it, Rs have no hope. Without it, Ds have some other paths to 270 Electoral Votes, but it’s harder.”
To that end:
…there are 36 Democratic field offices* in Pennsylvania to 6 for Republicans.
Staff: 1500 vs 300
Volunteers: 400,000 vs 14,000
[*It is unknown whether the 36 Democratic field offices referenced above include union halls, or not.]
Forget the Performance, the Polls & the Pundits
Even though Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will be squaring off on Tuesday night, neither’s debate performance, tomorrow’s polls, not the media pundits will mean anything if one candidate has a ground game advantage over the other.
The outcome of November’s election will be determined by the people who actually vote.