Biden Campaign Can’t Get Volunteers

When Obama won in 2008, he had an army of volunteers. People of all ages, ethnicity and backgrounds clamored to see America elect its first black president.

And he was clean too. But the man who declared Obama clean isn’t getting the same reaction. And Biden can’t seem to muster the Leftist base to support him in the field.

According to Politico, the Trump campaign has knocked on over one million doors, while Joe Biden’s campaign says it knocked on zero.

Biden’s team blames the “plandemic”.

The Republican and Democratic parties — from the presidential candidates on down — are taking polar opposite approaches to door-to-door canvassing this fall. The competing bets on the value of face-to-face campaigning during a pandemic has no modern precedent, making it a potential wild card in November, especially in close races.

Biden and the Democratic National Committee aren’t sending volunteers or staffers to talk with voters at home, and don’t anticipate doing anything more than dropping off literature unless the crisis abates. The campaign and the Democratic National Committee think they can compensate for the lack of in-person canvassing with phone calls, texts, new forms of digital organizing, and virtual meet-ups with voters.

“At first I was nervous, but our response rates on phone calls and texts are much higher and people are not necessarily wanting someone to go up to their door right now,” said Jenn Ridder, Biden’s national states director. “You get to throw a lot of the rule book out the window and try out new things.”

The Trump campaign see things very differently. Why not visit people when you know they are most likely home?

The article continues,

Trump and the Republican National Committee, in contrast, started deploying mask-wearing field staffers and volunteers to the streets in June. The GOP quickly ramped up and now claims more than a million doors a week despite Covid-19 surges across the country, including in swing states like Arizona.

Republicans say their door-knocking dominance could make a difference in November, since in-person conversations have long been considered the most effective type of voter contact.

“From now to Election Day, voters may only see one campaign at their doors,” Elliott Echols, the RNC’s national field director.

“If this were Barack Obama running, Democrats would want to be out there knocking doors. They don’t have enthusiasm or a strong field operation, so it is a convenient excuse. We can do this safely for President Trump and Republicans up and down the ballot.”

Correction. If this were Barack Obama in 2008. Because by 2012, the gold-plating had worn off Obama’s mystique, and few cared about the man. Most voted for him out of guilt.

Regardless, I get the point. Biden can’t get volunteers willing to do the dirty work, but Trump can. Even more hysterical is Democrats can pay people to riot and cause mayhem across multiple cities, but apparently nobody wants the job of selling Biden door-to-door. Or anywhere else for that matter.

Not the case for Donald Trump. His team markets his re-election with surgical precision.

Both campaigns are funneling millions of dollars into their field programs. Trump Victory has over 1,500 full-time staffers across 23 states, and it has required staffers to read “Groundbreakers: How Obama’s 2.2 Million Volunteers Transformed Campaigning in America,” a close look at Obama’s 2008 and 2012 ground games. The RNC says they will add an additional 1,000 people by the end of September to focus on doors and get out the vote.

So Trump’s team is saturating the market, with plans to increase intensity. Meanwhile, Biden is just getting started.

Biden’s organizing program was slow to ramp up after the primary. Senior leadership for critical states like Florida and Pennsylvania were announced only in July and the campaign set a goal of just 600 hires by the end of June. The Biden campaign, however, told POLITICO it will have over 2,000 battleground staffers by the end of August through a coordinated committee with the DNC.

Will door knocking work? That’s like asking, “Do rallies work?”

If you ask Trump, rallies work. Because he can fill stadiums with tens of thousands. But for Biden, not so much.

Door-to-door will be much the same. What do Democrats have to sell about Biden? His policies suck. He’s a racist. He molested a staffer, Tara Reade. And he has dementia.

Democrats will have to pay a lot of money to get people to back Captain Demento. Despite their media onslaught that has Biden leading everywhere, reality poses a different scenario.

I know I’m anxious to have Biden door-knockers approach me. I’ve got a few questions for them. Who knows; I might even convert them to supporting Trump!

 

 

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