538.com : "Organizing For America Ramps Up For November"

[Clio the Leo]

Organizing For America Ramps Up For November

by Tom Schaller @ 11:15 AM
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Last week I interviewed Organizing for America director Mitch Stewart and deputy director Jeremy Bird. (Thanks to Lynda Tran of the Democratic National Committee, who helped set up the phone interview and who participated as well.) We covered a range of subjects, but mostly focused on OFA's efforts to mobilize supporters during the healthcare reform debates and the organization's plans for the upcoming 2010 cycle.

Following is the first half of the interview, which began with Stewart and Bird asking if they could give opening statements about what OFA is doing right now in advance of the midterm elections now just five months away:

MITCH STEWART: Just as a real general overview, both Jeremy and I worked on the campaign for a long time. And during that process we brought in a lot of these new, first-time voters in 2008. And as we have worked in a lot of elections and special elections since then, we are looking at a group of voters that, one, could be pivotal in turning an election, you know the electoral success or failure for the president and his allies in Washington and across the country; but two, also looking to make sure that as Organizing for America, the president’s field team, who are at the universe of voters who are most responsive to our message? Looking at the data, there were 15 million first-time voters in 2008, both who registered after 2006 and voted for the first time in 2008, and the president won them in 2008 with about 70 or 71 percent, 72 percent, depending on how you look at it.

If you look across the country at congressional races and statewide races, these voters are viable. In Ohio, you’re talking about a little over 700,000 . In a lot of these bellwether congressional races you’re looking at a universe in the tens of thousands of first-time 2008 voters. And we are uniquely positioned to reach out and talk to them—not only because of the messenger, and continuing the conversation between first-time voters and the president—but also because these voters got engaged and involved because they really supported the president’s change agenda. And we’re uniquely positioned to reach out and talk to those folks.

And in general what Jeremy did in South Carolina and I did in Iowa is get these folks to pledge that they’ll vote in 2010—just like I did in the caucuses in Iowa in 2008 and Jeremy did in the South Carolina primary—as a way to keep this new generation of voters engaged in our process. So we’ve been busy planning that, and we’re in the beginning phases of implementing that, which will start on June 5.

MUCH MUCH more...
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