Phonebanks are seldom referenced in news stories about campaign messaging and tactics. When done right, phonebanks can be downright boring—there is no thrill in the third or fourth call to a committed supporter who has yet to fulfill a promise to vote, reminding them of the last conversation about mail ballots and nudging them once more to do the right thing.

But the California Recall is a reminder that a good phonebank can be the difference between a tight win and a landslide.

At Chism Strategies, we’ve always said, “Pester your voters today. They will thank you at the Victory Party tomorrow.” We applied this philosophy on a massive scale to help secure a win for Governor Newsom and a boost for Democrats nationally.

THE LARGEST PHONEBANK OPERATION IN 2021

• 3 million targeted phone households
• 25 days of calling
• More than 2.1 million conversations and messages
• 566,200 land line and cell phone voters committed to vote against the Recall

UNRELENTING FOLLOW UP

• Regular call backs to supporters until the registrar confirmed these allies had voted
• Tracking by type of voter commitment (by mail, dropbox, in person)
• Daily file updates to the call back list to remove persons who had cast their vote

BANKING VOTES TO HELP CREATE A LANDSLIDE

• By Election Eve, more than 380,000 of our supporters had cast their ballots
• 67.2% of those who committed to vote against the Recall had mailed or dropped off their ballots before polls opened on Election Day

If you’d like to see the case study — summaries of daily tracking of commitments by voter method (mail/dropbox/in person), conversion ratios, the response patterns as Election Day neared, and more — get in touch with Brannon Miller at brannon@chismstrategies.com.