SWOP's 2010 General Election GOTV Results
The SouthWest Organizing Project (SWOP) undertook our largest scale non-partisan GOTV campaign in the organizations 30 year history in the fall of 2010. We endeavored to outreach to 60,000 New Mexicans (our “universe”), with a goal of turning 20,000 out to the polls to cast their vote. We worked to turnout the Rising American Electorate (RAE) in underrepresented communities across New Mexico. The RAE is made up of unmarried women, people of color and young people between the ages of 18-29.
Figure 1: Demographic breakout of SWOP get out the vote universe during the 2010 General Election
(POC: People of color)
SWOP’s universe spanned 14 of New Mexico’s 33 counties including Rio Arriba, Taos, Mora, Sandoval, Santa Fe, San Miguel, Bernalillo, Valencia, Socorro, Chaves, Eddy, Lea, Otero and Dona Ana counties. SWOP’s initial universe was approximately 60,000 voters, but we cleaned our list as we went along. We are happy to report that we surpassed our goal. 24,072 of our initial voter universe, and 20,412 of our final universe cast their vote in the November 2010 mid-term general election.
Our “GOTV” program consisted of one robo-call, four rounds of phone calls (1st round: awareness rap; 2nd round: Early/Absentee rap; 3rd round: reminder/commit rap; 4th round polling location rap *Appendix A), and two direct mail pieces *Apendix B. The entire 60,000 received the robo-call, which reduced our universe to 46,689. Along with the robo-call, the 46,689 received the first round phone call and both direct mail pieces. This effort reduced the universe to 38, 595. The 38,595 remained SWOP’s universe for the duration of the campaign. The 38,595 voter universe received an additional three rounds of phone calls. This 38,595 received the full SWOP “GOTV” program.
Considering the very minimal, if any contact with the entire 60,000 voter universe, SWOP is considering our “treated” universe in two categories, initial universe of 46,689, and final universe of 38,595. The initial universe of 46,689 turned out at 52% for a total of 24,072 underrepresented voters casting ballots on November 2nd. The final universe of 38,595, that received the entire program, turned out at 52.8% for a total of 20,412 underrepresented voters casting their ballot on November 2nd. This represented 25.0% of the total c3 Table target universe of 154,531 voters.
In New Mexico, voter turnout was 607,700, or 52.7% of eligible registered voters. SWOP and other "c3" organizations who compose what we refer to as the "c3 table" turned out 68,041 voters for an overall 11% of statewide voter turnout. SWOP turnout alone was 20,412 (2,363-Absentee, 5,440-Early, 12,599-Election Day), for a total vote share of 3.4% of total statewide voter turnout.
Figure 2: SWOP Final Share of Statewide Turnout
The next chart, Figure 3, represents the results for "unlikely" voters--those who don't vote regularly. Compared are the unlikely statewide turnout vs. the unlikely c3 Table turnout and SWOP’s unlikely turnout. SWOP surpassed both the statewide and c3 Table unlikely turnout percentages. Their unlikely final universe turnout percentage was 38.7% (the entire final universe was made up of mostly unlikely, and some more consistent voters that come from underrepresented communities, see Figure 1) . This is an increase over the c3 Table unlikely percentage of 5.2% and of 12.0% over the statewide unlikely percentage.
Figure 3: 2010 Statewide Turnout vs. c3 Table Turnout and SWOP Turnout
IMPACT:
SWOP made a significant impact in the 2010 general elections. SWOP’s efforts represent 3.4% of overall statewide turnout, giving SWOP a 3.4% vote share. The NM Governors race was won by Susan Martinez with 53.3% of the vote over Diane Denish who received 46.6%. The margin of victory in the state’s top race was 3.4%, exactly SWOP’s vote share.
Of eligible registered voters, 52.7% cast their ballot on Nov. 2, 2010. Demographically, these 52.7% represented a high concentration of likely voters, older voters, male voters, white voters, and wealthier voters. Conversely, SWOP’s universe represented a high concentration of unlikely voters, younger voters, voters of color, women voters, and working class voters. SWOP’s universe turned out at 52.8%.
Across New Mexico, unlikely voters turned out at 26.7%. Unlikely voters that SWOP targeted turned out at 38.7%.
STRATEGY:
SWOP has been engaging in voter outreach for several decades, with a more clear and strategic approach for the past 7 years. SWOP defines our voter outreach as “mass base political organizing”, in that our goal, while during election time is to turn people out to the polls, extends far beyond voting. The key strategic focus of SWOP is community organizing, but we have come to understand that community level organizing is not sufficient to achieve our mission to “empower the disenfranchised of the southwest to realize racial and gender equality and social and economic justice”.
We realize that to truly transform New Mexico we must reach much farther than the communities that we are organizing with. This is where mass base political organizing strategy comes into play. In order to transform politics in New Mexico, we have to make the government work for the people by shifting the electorate to better represent our communities and our social justice values. Scale is key in achieving this goal. Outreaching to tens of thousands of voters helps us achieve this. Still, focusing only on turning these people out to vote is not sufficient. We’ve been engaging this base of tens of thousands of voters not only during election time, but several times throughout the year. Through initiatives such as our Census Awareness Campaign, Tax Education campaign, Legislative Accountability Campaign, and the like. This is mass base political organizing. The seamless integration of community organizing and mass base political organizing has helped us more effectively achieve our mission.
SWOP recognizes that we can’t do this work alone. SWOP partnered with Mesquite Community Action Committee (MCAC), located in the small town of Mesquite, NM, just south of Las Cruces, NM; and El Centro de Iqualdad y Derechos (El Centro), a immigrant rights organization in Albuquerque, NM. Either organization by themselves did not have the capacity or experience to run a GOTV field campaign, so SWOP coordinated all three of our efforts, maximizing all organization’s capacity. MCAC was responsible for our outreach in Doña Ana County (where MCAC is located), and El Centro mobilized several of their members to be paid canvassers in SWOP field program. SWOP trained the members of both MCAC and El Centro in the basics of field operations, data-entry, and phone-banking. SWOP’s participation in the Pushback Network, a national Network of organizations that do integrated voter engagement, was critical to this effort to develop the skills of our ally organizations. SWOP is also a member of the State Voices c3 table, where we access VAN, the voter activation network, and coordinate with other ally organizations to ensure maximum impact by minimizing duplication.
Based on the results of our 2010 General Election efforts, SWOP plans to continue to use elections as a crucial decision point for engaging our mass base in transforming New Mexico. We are currently engaging our base in the redistricting process. We plan on continuing to engage our base, and expanding our base through non-partisan GOTV work. We will be running a GOTV campaign for the upcoming Albuquerque Municipal Elections on October 4th, 2011; the Carlsbad (a small town in South East NM) Municipal Elections in March of 2012; the NM statewide primary elections in June 2012; and, the November 2012 general elections. Together, we can build a better New Mexico.
APPENDIX A: GOTV Phone Rap
APPENDIX B: Mail Pieces
