How We’re Going to Defeat MAGA, 10 Doors at a Time

The stakes of 2024 could not be higher. Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee, and our slim majority in the Senate is in dire jeopardy. Although Indivisible has a nationwide network of volunteers, recent electoral cycles have surfaced growing challenges with traditional voter contact methods. To mobilize the base, build a winning majority, and retake our Democratic trifecta this year, the pro-democracy, anti-extremist coalition of volunteers and activists must adapt to the changing electoral landscape.

Indivisible’s got a plan for that.

During the 2022 midterm elections, we developed a groundbreaking new tool called Neighbor2Neighbor. It invites volunteers to sign up to canvass their own Democratic-leaning neighbors to turn them out to vote. Unlike traditional canvassing, it does not require extensive materials and records, and instead relies on the existing relationships between neighbors to facilitate the conversation. Tests of the tool in early deployment indicate that Neighbor2Neighbor is more than small-scale canvassing or relational organizing; in fact, it’s a game changer for talking to voters and turning them out to win — and it’s roughly twice as effective as traditional GOTV canvassing, the most effective form of direct voter contact out there.

HOW IT WORKS

In 2022, Indivisible developed and tested Neighbor2Neighbor, a hybrid canvassing-relational organizing approach, as part of our regular practice of developing and testing experimental voter contact strategies.

Traditional canvassing is an important tactic in getting out the vote, but if you’ve done it before, you’re probably familiar with its inefficiencies and limitations. In a traditional canvassing shift, a volunteer is assigned a walk packet of 30–50 strangers’ houses in an unfamiliar neighborhood. Their goal is to reach as many as possible during an afternoon and log data on an app about their interactions so a future volunteer can contact them again. Because many of those voters are not home, it’s not uncommon for a volunteer to have only 3–5 conversations during their shift. Because of the time commitment, travel, and the requirement to talk to complete strangers far from home, canvassing is one of the toughest tactics for new volunteers.

But face-to-face outreach from a trusted messenger really matters for a successful GOTV. Relational organizing teaches us that harnessing personal relationships is one of the best ways to have authentic conversations. Neighbor2Neighbor’s key insight is that it taps into an underappreciated relationship: our neighbors. Instead of giving a volunteer a long list of strangers, we give them a short list of neighbors.

When you first sign up with Neighbor2Neighbor, you’ll be assigned 10 doors of voters from a Democratic GOTV universe in your neighborhood within just a few blocks of your home. You can complete these conversations on your own time, like during a daily dog walk or after school dropoff. Volunteers can later take on more sets of voters or be sent to contact those same voters again. There is no app, and no need to create an account. Volunteers receive assignments via text and email. The process is designed to be as simple and lightweight as possible!

Not only does this program capitalize on community ties between neighbors, but it also offers a new way for Democrats and progressives to forge personal relationships in their communities. Our early volunteers have been pleasantly surprised to learn that there are significant numbers of like-minded, pro-democracy people in their neighborhood. That’s good for this election — and it will pay dividends in future organizing.

THE DATA BEHIND NEIGHBOR2NEIGHBOR

Real-talk: In seven years of iterating and testing voter contact strategies at Indivisible, we have never seen a result as promising as our Neighbor2Neighbor pilot.

During the 2022 midterms, we piloted Neighbor2Neighbor in 15 competitive races across the country, from Nevada to Wisconsin to Georgia. Indivisible’s early analysis indicated that the pilot was highly effective, and that analysis was recently verified by trusted third-party data experts.

The Movement Cooperative (TMC), a progressive data cooperative, confirmed the following findings:

As part of the independent assessment, TMC reviewed Indivisible’s code, data, project documentation, and final report. … We estimated that the Neighbor2Neighbor program had a 1.1 percentage point (pp) effect on voter turnout (90% CI 0.2pp–2.1pp, p = 0.052)

This is an enormous result — roughly twice the effect of traditional GOTV door-to-door canvassing.

This evaluation confirms our early assessment: Neighbor2Neighbor works spectacularly well and has the potential to shift the outcome of this election.

WHY NEIGHBOR2NEIGHBOR WORKS: IN-PERSON CONVERSATIONS + NEIGHBORHOOD RELATIONSHIPS + EASE OF USE

Neighbor2Neighbor is a program designed to break out of the constraints that are changing the impact and appeal of other volunteer voter contact work in election cycles.

• You’ll be much more likely to reach most — if not all — of your assigned contacts. During phone banks, you’ve probably sat on a phone for hours only to talk to a few willing targets. Similarly, during a canvass shift, you might complete a three-hour shift only having talked to a few of your target voters out of a list of 30–50. These traditional approaches are still important, but smaller lists and flexible contact times.
• You’ll be asked to talk to people with whom you share a baseline commonality: your neighborhood and community. This brings the strengths of relational organizing to a canvassing setting. Conversations on the doors are easy to start and less awkward than traditional canvassing. The scripts provided are also easy conversation guides rather than a list of survey questions.
• The simple, app-free user experience for volunteers lowers the barrier to entry. Unlike other voter contact methods, you won’t be burdened with call tool technology, apps, or other complicated data collection. All you need to do is provide your name and address to get a list of voters and a script. If you can talk to your neighbors, you can make a difference.
• Neighbor2Neighbor opens up an entirely different pool of potential volunteers for recruitment due to its convenience and simple user experience. Many potential volunteers who care about the issues can’t fit canvassing shifts into their work or family obligations but can complete Neighbor2Neighbor lists. This means Neighbor2Neighbor can be layered with other tactics. It also widens the circle of who can participate in this fundamental piece of the democratic process.

Neighbor2Neighbor leans into the power of community-building at a time when voters are tuning out other voter contact methods. The rise of caller ID, increased willingness to ignore SMS messages, and the advent of a new pessimistic culture around doors (epitomized in RING doorbells) have made many methods of voter contact feel unfulfilling for volunteers. Compare that with testimony collected from Neighbor2Neighbor volunteers:

Did ten of my neighbors today in a half hour or so… Easiest thing I’ve ever done, and now I know who the other progressives are in my neighborhood! Signing up for ten more to do tomorrow.

WHEN CAN YOU DO NEIGHBOR2NEIGHBOR?

Indivisible will have more to share on Neighbor2Neighbor soon! We plan to implement this tool as a central pillar of our 2024 strategy, Project 2024: Majority Over MAGA, making it available to volunteers in every one of our target races and a wide selection of competitive races across the country.

Starting this spring, volunteers can pre-register for their doors ahead of a national kickoff in early summer to mark the anniversary of the Dobbs decision. Visit majorityovermaga.org to learn more about our plan to win, and sign up today to get an alert to sign up for Neighbor2Neighbor the second it becomes available.