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Phone Banking Pennsylvania: It’s Still the Economy

Tales from a Red County in a Swing State

By: Uma Richie (Diary)  |  September 16th, 2008 at 08:16 AM  | 

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It’s not scientific and the sample size is small, but here is some raw data from my phone banking efforts on 9/8 and 9/15:

64 phone calls (32 each week) to likely voters, not all were Republicans.
9 McCain supporters (3 last week/6 yesterday)
8 Undecided (5 last week/3 yesterday)
1 Obama supporter (last week)
2 refused to respond
44 answering machines, messages, wrong numbers, etc.


Points of interest:
1. Given four choices (the economy and jobs, gas prices, national security, health care) 7 of the 8 “undecideds,” without hesitation, cited the economy and jobs as their top area of concern this election. Although, the economy is usually the number one issue in an election, I was surprised to find that the choice was nearly unanimous.
2. Of the 9 McCain supporters, 5 felt that all four issue choices were equally important and had to be pressed to pick one.
3. Last week, when the phone bank script introduction used the words, “calling on behalf of the local Republican Party,” 7 respondents initially pointed out that they are not Republicans. This week, the script was changed to “calling on behalf of the local McCain-Palin campaign,” and no one balked.

The county:
My phone bank was in a county in Pennsylvania where President Bush won every precinct except one in 2004. The local economy is a mixture of farming, manufacturing, and in one community, tourism. There is also a large and growing population of commuters to the three metropolitan areas within 75 miles. The population is 90 percent white. The county unemployment rate was 3.3% in 2007. The county foreclosure rate is 0.02%, but I could not find a national average for comparison.

My conclusion:
To win the votes of the remaining undecided electorate, we need to present a strong pro-McCain message on the economy. The grassroots Get-Out-The-Vote efforts in counties like mine will be crucial in canceling out the work of the Phiadelphia/Pittsburgh Democratic party machines.

I’ll be working the phone bank every Monday until Election Day, and will report back on any significant findings.

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COMMENTS

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  • JaonneB

    and feel like we might actually turn this state red. Every little bit counts.

    I’m also located in South Central PA, York County. By your description I would guess you are in Lancaster County?

    • JaonneB
      • Uma_Richie

        nt

  • JaonneB

    I’m usually at the E. Market Street office once a week in the evenings. Who knows, we may run into each other one of these days.

    • JaonneB

      I’m usually at the E. Market St. office once a week in the evenings. Maybe we’ll run into each other one of these days.

      • Uma_Richie

        the internet is obviously not so private, and I don’t want my house becoming a Code Pink target.

        Anyway, if you’d like, I’ll leave my contact info for you at the GOP office where you work.

        • JaonneB

          I tend to forget how crazy people can be. I’ll check at the front desk for your info during my shift next week. It will be fun comparing notes.

          Joanne

  • JaonneB

    although I didn’t keep a record of my calls. I also volunteer for the phone bank at my local PA McCain office and used the same poll you described above. I found a majority of McCain supporters chose National Security with Jobs/Economy running in second. I had several ask why immigration wasn’t on the list and I noticed that the older responders usually chose Health Care.

    I volunteer weekly and will make sure to keep track of my results in the future. It is interesting to see the differences and hope you post again about your findings.

  • Uma_Richie

    I’m in south central PA, where are you?

    It looks like PA will play an important role this election, so we have to keep working the phone bank. I’d certainly like to see my vote count toward the electoral college for once.