Republicans built their ground operation on the successful mobilization plan of 2002 and on lessons gleaned from the party's "72-hour Project," started after the 2000 election to determine why Bush seemed to lose support the final weekend. Democrats have taken what they have done in the past and perfected it with improved voter lists and new technology.
Democrats, who traditionally have more effective organizations, say that even with improvements by the Republicans, their operation this year is far beyond what was done on behalf of Al Gore in 2000, when they surprised Bush and his team by winning several states on the strength of the Election Day operation.
The scope of the expansion in the campaigns' organizations can be breathtaking. Four years ago, Bush employed 22 paid staff members in Florida. This year, he has 500 on the payroll. In Ohio, Democrats had 10 field offices and 40 staff members. This year, Democrats have 57 field offices in the state and 270 paid employees. Mike Erlandson, chairman of Minnesota's Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, said they have six times as many volunteers as in 2000.
Democrats also have added flexibility, because of ACT's resources. In Iowa, for example, the Kerry campaign and state party are concentrating on turning out the vote in 22 cities while ACT is focused on voters in 195 small towns.
The campaigns have produced precise precinct-by-precinct vote goals, based on their best estimates of tomorrow's turnout. At an organizing conference in Milwaukee a week ago, a young Kerry organizer recruited volunteers for the final weekend, saying they would need to knock on 120,448 doors. Campaign officials also outlined just how many more hard commitments they needed to reach their overall vote target. In Jacksonville, Fla., Kerry organizers focused on four precincts where 16,000 votes, most of them from black voters, were thrown out in 2000.
In New Mexico, Bush received 286,418 votes and lost the state to Gore by just 366 votes. Scott Jennings, a state Bush campaign official, said they set a goal of recruiting 6,600 volunteers, one for every 50 voters they needed to meet their targets, suggesting the campaign is hoping to boost the president's total by more than 43,000 votes to 330,000 tomorrow. Jennings said they recruited 15,000 volunteers, each with the responsibility to look after 25 voters.
The two campaigns have made a special effort to identify and encourage infrequent voters to go to the polls. Through months of canvassing and calling, the Kerry campaign rated each potential voter on two scales: strength of support for the Massachusetts senator and frequency of voting. They then identified the sporadic voters who were most likely to back Kerry and pursued them with follow-up calls and visits.
Bush's campaign targeted its list of infrequent voters and has made an effort to get them to the polls before tomorrow in states that allow early voting. Campaign officials argue that it is a waste of money and energy to encourage reliable voters to do so early. "You want to make sure you're adding new people rather than spending resources that could be spent on something else rather than on people who would otherwise vote on Election Day," one official said.
The campaigns will spend heavily on Election Day turnout efforts. ACT will pay its forces $75 tomorrow to get voters to the polls. The Republican National Committee is paying travel and hotel costs and $25 a day for food allowances for at least 5,000 loyalists working in battleground states. In Ohio, the state party is paying poll watchers $100 a day to challenge voters with disputed registration credentials.
Never before have campaigns spent as much time preparing for an election. Bush's campaign ran a series of practice weekends to test its organization and, according to officials, was able to fix the flaws.
In New Hampshire, Democrats have canvassed neighborhoods every weekend since June, with about half of their workers coming from Kerry's home state of Massachusetts. "It feels like we are right in the middle of things up here," said Vanessa Careiro, who grew up in Florida and is a freshman at Boston College.
Turning out committed voters can be an imprecise science. On a recent swing around Appleton, Wis., ACT canvassers found working-class Democrats reporting they would vote for Bush. Even one ACT canvasser was not sure how she will vote.
For the workers, there will be no rest until late tomorrow night, as the campaigns will monitor who has voted in key precincts throughout the day. Debbie Irwin, co-chairman of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Westmoreland County outside Pittsburgh said any identified Bush voter who has not shown up by 3 p.m. will receive a reminder call. There and in other states, the calls will not stop until the polls close.
Edsall reported from Iowa. Staff writers Ceci Connolly in Pennsylvania, Darryl Fears and Dale Russakoff in Florida, Jonathan Finer in New Hampshire, Michael Powell in Wisconsin, Peter Slevin in Minnesota and Vanessa Williams in New Mexico contributed to this report.
