The numbers vary among different legislators and political activists, yet somewhere between 65,000 and 90,000 registered Iowa Democrats did not vote in 2022. It seems like an easy problem to solve. Reach out to those voters, the ones that still live in the state or district, and encourage them to vote. Easy-peasy lemon-squeezy… done before you know it. It surely will make a difference!

Not so fast!

While a good number of political activists swear that in-person contact — at people’s homes or by telephone — is the most effective way to get voters to vote, Democratic activists who attended the Aug. 17 People over Politics town-hall meeting in Shueyville were skeptical. One activist, who was critical of the Iowa Democratic Party, said “door knocking doesn’t work,” based on his personal experience. I spent time at the doors during State Senator Kevin Kinney’s 2022 campaign and must admit that between people not being home, having already voted, and living complicated lives, door knocking wasn’t the best use of my time in a campaign. All the same, what else is there to do?

On Sunday, Aug. 20, about 50 political activists gathered in Iowa City for training in how to canvass in the No Off-Years campaign designed to begin talking to voters now and gain commitments to vote in November 2024. Johnson County, the Iowa City-Coralville area particularly, has a different set of challenges to address with a high density of Democrats. The goal is to match or beat the Iowa Secretary of State’s 2020 voter turnout percentage of 74.0 percent in the county (86 percent of active voters). Statewide the election had 76.0 percent turnout (81.2 percent of active). In this usage, “to canvass” refers to a lot of door-knocking. The county party laid out the plan to address infrequent voters in an Aug. 22, email:

Our GOTV team begins canvassing on September 10. We will go out on six separate dates in September and October. We will be talking to Democrats who are “inactive” or who vote infrequently as well as liberal to moderate “no party” voters, and learning what issues are of importance to them and their families. This information will be very helpful in understanding how to best appeal to No Party voters whose top issues align with Democratic values.

Email from the Johnson County Democrats, Aug. 22, 2023.

If people are not motivated to vote and door knocking and telephone calls don’t work to get them out, what is the approach activists should use to get ready for November 2024? An answer to this question is above the pay grade for most volunteers. Right or wrong, the assumption, at least in Johnson County, is that door knocking does work, so full steam ahead. That may not work as well in districts like House District 91 where Democrats are not concentrated in a few areas, and the Republican won the state house race in Johnson County and district-wide.

I am in the “door knocking is one tool in the organizer’s kitbag” camp on the spectrum of how to win voters over and get them to the polls. The main trouble with political door-knocking is in places like Johnson County, a substantial, machine-like organization is created to contact voters and use a specific script when they do. Door-knocking and telephone calling is scheduled in shifts where the volunteer has little control over which voters are contacted, or why they were chosen for attention. One has to have faith in the system that the masterminds of developing canvass lists know what they are doing. The recent lack of success Iowa Democrats experienced hasn’t instilled such faith.

Let’s get back to the basics. In 1964 John F. Kennedy lost Iowa yet his constituents were hard at work trying to make a difference. I watched my father do his voter contact planning and it was not complicated. 1). Pick up a mimeographed page with a generic city block printed on it from the union local. 2). Learn the names, addresses, and phone numbers of every voter on the block and add them to the form. 3). Meet with neighbors and ask if they would vote for JFK and how certain they were. 4). Make a note on the sheet. 5). Follow up when the election got closer. It all sounds so simple. A person was in charge of a geographic turf, gathered needed information on all voters, and engaged them to get out those voting for JFK.

Obama used a similar system in 2008, although his campaign provided names, addresses and contact information. Our neighborhood organizer had a paper list of every voter in their turf and worked them until they knew where each person stood on voting for Obama, and if they weren’t, whether they were persuadable. Unlike JFK, Obama won Iowa that election and in 2012 as well. It was the in-person localized contact that made a difference during the Obama campaign. So what happened?

Data heads took over voter targeting and the voter contact operation by managing a voter database comprised of available voter information.

With the rise in campaign technology beginning with the Howard Dean campaign in 2004, how campaigns were conducted changed. Obama brought the technology of campaigns together and we had an edge on Republicans. That didn’t last long.

How Do Iowa Democrats Proceed? Blog for Iowa, Aug. 10, 2023.

Working from a voter database instead of from a neighborhood has its merits. When there aren’t enough volunteers, it can prioritize which voters get contacted. For Democrats, that is usually people who don’t vote consistently or meet certain demographic profiles like age, sex and area of residence. Under the “we don’t have enough volunteers so the party will pick which voters to contact” method, volunteers can be disenfranchised. Some of this dissatisfaction surfaced at the meeting in Shueyville.

It seems a bit much to ask Democratic activists to have blind faith that the party and its data heads know what they are doing. Democratic support for candidates in Iowa degraded beginning with the 2010 election, culminating with the 2016 election when Republicans gained a legislative trifecta. While the Israelites were made to wander in the wilderness for forty years for their disobedience and lack of belief, let’s hope it doesn’t take Iowa Democrats that long to get with the program. 40 years of Republicans in charge would be hella bad.

Don’t like door knocking and phone calling? Stop complaining and do something else that makes a difference. Something like taking ownership of your neighborhood and maximizing how many votes can be produced for your candidates. The Democratic Party must determine how to better empower this kind of activism.

To get involved click on the Iowa Democratic Party website.