Looking for a single convinced voter in Pennsylvania

PHILADELPHIA — All practice. All walking. All the doors slammed, only to open a crack or slam shut. All campaign literature that ends up in the trash. All the hours of doing this, repeating this routine, having the same conversations – in the end it comes down to getting votes. Even a single vote. This is all that any canvasser can hope for.

“Hi, my name is Brian. I’m with For Our Future Pennsylvania and I’m looking for Ms. Dionna,” says Brian Phelps, 38, announcing himself as a volunteer canvasser for the local chapter of the union-backed super PAC.

Ms. Dionna, like the vast majority of people Phelps is trying to talk to today, is not on the other side of the door. Not home or moved. Phelps makes a note on his canvassing app and moves on to the next house in this stretch of Hunting Park, a lower-income neighborhood in North Philadelphia where Democratic-aligned groups are trying to get the vice presidential vote out. Kamala Harris.

Phelps traveled here from Maryland to help with the massive on-the-ground effort to reach what algorithms and analysts have determined are the most convinced and least inclined voters — the people who, with a nudge from a canvasser, s -could prove it for Harris on Tuesday.

It’s Phelps’ first day at the doors of Philadelphia, and things haven’t gotten off to a great start. His first hour was basically a bust. “Even when I’m not at home, we’re doing the work,” he says, trying to remain upbeat. “We are Democrats. We do the work.”

There are thousands and thousands of doors being knocked on right now in Pennsylvania, neighborhoods being canvassed and re-canvased in a state that will determine the outcome of the election. This work is undertaken by a variety of groups, some that are able to legally coordinate with the Harris campaign and others, such as For Our Future, which are not. But their goal is the same: turn out voters for Harris, vice presidential candidate Tim Walz and Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, who is fending off a challenge from Republican David McCormick.

The Harris campaign alone is on track to knock on 5 million doors by Election Day, according to a senior campaign official. This number represents nearly 40% of the population and nearly the total number of households in the state, although it is likely that many of the contacts are repeats. For Our Future has also knocked on over half a million doors since September.

For these knockers, a day’s work, in a cradle state where literally every last vote counts, often boils down to a single conversation.

“At the vast, vast, vast majority of doors, no one answers. That’s just the biggest part of the experience,” says Jamie DeMarco, a statewide director of the Chesapeake Climate Network Action Fund, who trained canvassers last weekend at For Our Future’s Germantown headquarters. “You move through the haystack to find that one person’s needle that only a personal conversation could move.”

Most people who sign up to canvass don’t need to be convinced of the stakes of this coin-flip election, but DeMarco drives it home anyway in the 30-minute training he gives volunteers before they’re released: “We’re here today because whoever wins Pennsylvania has a better than 90% chance of winning the White House. And in the last two cycles, Pennsylvania has determined the winners. It was a flip-flop and was determined by just a few tens of thousands of votes each time.”

Trump won Pennsylvania, the swing state with the most Electoral College votes, by less than a percentage point in 2016, while Biden won it by a little more than a percentage point in 2020. Now Harris and Trump they’re basically even here, a few days apart. since the election.

“If somebody wins in a landslide, then what you did on the ground, knocking on doors, probably wouldn’t have made a difference either way,” DeMarco says. “But when somebody wins by less than a percentage point, you know it’s the ground game that made the difference.”

As hard as it is to believe, there are still undecided voters, even this close to the election. A recent swing-state poll pegged the percentage of likely Commonwealth voters undecided at just over 2% – more than the winning margin in the last two presidential elections. These are the people that both parties, in theory, are trying to identify and get to the polls.

But Democrats, in many ways, are having more conversations like the ones Phelps was trying to have last weekend on people’s doorsteps. Trump’s campaign, unlike past elections, it does not appear to have equivalent operation in swing states. Instead, it outsourced personal voter outreach to partisan groups like Turning Point Action and Elon Musk’s America PACwhile the campaign itself did recruiting activist “poll watchers” the focus of its core efforts. That reality is borne out by the data — by a wide margin, more registered voters reported being contacted by the Harris campaign than the Trump campaign in recent weeks. according to the latest Gallup poll.

Why is only one party investing in trying to talk directly to swing voters? It’s easier to throw money at ads and mailers — or, in the case of Trump’s campaign, to mobilize volunteers with an eye to potentially challenging the results. The doors, meanwhile, can be a shock. They require patience, precision and a good step that is reinforced at the top of the ticket. It takes many hours just to identify a convinced voter. Then you have to convince that person to actually vote for your candidate. And even then, there are few guarantees that the conversation will materialize into a vote for someone. There are people who will say anything to get someone off their doorstep.

Just ask Phelps and his canvassing partner, Veronica Bell, a 63-year-old paid organizer with For Our Future. Bell has been knocking on doors since 2016 and is working full-time on this April election. For a time, Bell was affiliated with Democratic Party“but I wanted to be more of a service to my neighborhood,” she says, so she turned to a more local operation. And Bell is as good at this job as they come: she knows the city, she’s open and friendly, not too pushy, but bold enough. Bell knows when to continue a conversation and when to move on.

“You were right at my door yesterday and I said yes,” a woman directs to Bell and Phelps through a doorbell camera. It is not unusual for homes in highly targeted neighborhoods to be searched multiple times.

“Thanks,” Bell says, already looking for her next address. “We have 10 days!”

Bell has some hard and fast rules for canvassing: knock once or twice, then back away from the door and wait for someone to answer. Do not unlock a gate or enter an apartment building. Don’t ask a child to open a door. Let’s say you are always recorded on the doorbell cameras. It is not lit in mailboxes.

The vast majority of addresses that appear on MiniVAN, the mobile canvassing app, do not give Bell and Phelps the opportunity to make a pitch for Harris and Casey. But the prospects improve once you get through the first two dozen houses.

“Do you want to support Kamala Harris?” Phelps asks a guy who looks like he was just sleeping.

“We are 10 days old! Who are you voting with?”

“You don’t know, but will you vote?”

“Look at Kamala, see what she represents. Because you know what the other guy means? Many lies. Don’t believe it. You wonder how he gets on the ballot when he’s on trial for 34 felonies. I know a guy who had two felonies 30 years ago and couldn’t work for the post office.”

Bell leaves them with some literature and thanks them for their time. And then move on to another block. And another.

They’re about to take a break for lunch when they run into Tahir Hightower, a 39-year-old chef and entrepreneur who says he doesn’t like either candidate.

Hightower may be the closest thing to a convinced voter all day. But Hightower isn’t necessarily someone who doesn’t know about the candidates. He just doesn’t see how voting for any of them could help him or the country. It is arguably harder to get someone to see the value of voting than to sell someone on the merits of a particular candidate.

“I’ve seen Kamala, but she’s saying the same thing that Obama said, and nothing’s really changed,” Hightower tells Bell, who asks if he’s seen Project 2025. widely unpopular the right-wing plan for a second Trump term.

“I did it. But I don’t think he’s bad,” Hightower says of Trump. “How do we know what to believe? I’m not saying I agree with him. I’m just indecisive.”

Bell asks him if he has daughters and sisters. Hightower says yes, and Bell tries to shut down the reproduction rights field.

“We’re talking about the right to have a say over your own body. The government shouldn’t be telling you that,” she says.

“You’re right about that. So Donald Trump is against it, is that what you say?”

“Yes. You told me you read Project 2025. Read more.”

“I don’t let that stuff scare me.”

“Think of your daughters and your sisters.”

“I am,” Hightower says, signaling that he’s ready to end the conversation and head back inside. “I’m thinking about it. I just don’t know.”