September, 15 2020, 12:00am EDT
With Less Than Two Months Until the Election, People's Action Unveils Groundbreaking Study That Charts A Path to Defeat Trump
First-of-its-kind study confirms deep canvassing can move undecided voters in a big way and shatter Trump’s stronghold in rural America
WASHINGTON
People's Action today unveiled new results from a groundbreaking study, charting a path to defeat Donald Trump in November. Building off of previous research, this historic study is the first in its field and confirms that deep canvassing can significantly reduce Trump support in rural and small-town America in key battleground states.
"These results are transformative, and tell us a different story about rural America. For so long, people in rural and small-towns have been neglected and cast out because no one took the time to listen to them,"People's Action Executive Director George Goehl said. "But we did, and we've found that compassion and empathy, rather than division and hatred, can lead us to a multiracial democracy that works for all of us."
Deep canvasses are candid conversations between canvassers and voters in which participants exchange and reflect on emotionally powerful experiences. These conversations are critical to not only defeating Trump but also to building bridges among a deeply divided America. People's Action's deep canvass experiment showed that the method is about 102 times more effective at moving individual voters than the typical presidential persuasion program.
"It's extremely difficult to persuade voters in a presidential election. Since taking office, Donald Trump's approval rating has held incredibly steady. People's Action's work shows that respectful, non-judgmental conversations are able to move voters where many other tactics have failed, producing meaningful increases in Biden's vote margin,"researchers Josh Kalla and David Broockman said.
"Being part of this experiment has really given me hope and purpose at a time when I desperately needed it. As a black woman living in the south I have been able to engage people in my community in a way that I did not think was possible. By truly listening to each other and sharing our lived experiences we were able to find common ground around creating a government that truly cares for all of us,"Down Home North Carolina (People's Action member organization) deep canvasser Bonnie Dobson said.
Key background and results of the study:
- People's Action partnered with The New Conversation Initiative to help design the study and collaborated with renowned researchers David Broockman and Josh Kalla to conduct an evaluation.
- Nearly 700 deep canvassing conversations took place among largely rural, white voters in the key battleground states of Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
- The organizations involved in the deep canvass study include Michigan People's Campaign, TakeAction Minnesota, Right and Democracy New Hampshire, Down Home North Carolina, Pennsylvania United, and Citizen Action of Wisconsin.
- For every 100 conversations, canvassers added 3.1 votes to Biden's vote margin. This impact is larger than the 2016 margin of victory in key battleground states and would translate to 108 electoral votes.
- The study also resulted in increasing the intensity of support for Biden and intent to vote in November.
People's Action conducts deep canvassing to defeat Donald Trump on a daily basis. A national team leads volunteer texting and phone banks focusing on seven priority states (Arizona, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, and New Hampshire) texting tens of thousands of people. By the election, People's Action member organizations along with more than 10,000 volunteers will reach 8 million people and have more than 200,000 deep canvass conversations to shift the tide and defeat Trump. Tonight, Tuesday, September 15th at 8 p.m. Eastern, People's Action in partnership with Seed the Vote, will be joined by Rep. Pramila Jayapal to host a town hall and launch a national deep canvas voter outreach program to defeat Trump and heal America.
A summary of findings may be found here, and the full report here.
People's Action builds the power of poor and working people, in rural, suburban, and urban areas to win change through issue campaigns and elections.
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Critics Blast 'Reckless and Impossible' Bid to Start Operating Mountain Valley Pipeline
"The time to build more dirty and dangerous pipelines is over," said one environmental campaigner.
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Environmental defenders on Tuesday ripped the company behind the Mountain Valley Pipeline for asking the federal government—on Earth Day—for permission to start sending methane gas through the 303-mile conduit despite a worsening climate emergency caused largely by burning fossil fuels.
Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC sent a letter Monday to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Acting Secretary Debbie-Anne Reese seeking final permission to begin operation on the MVP next month, even while acknowledging that much of the Virginia portion of the pipeline route remains unfinished and developers have yet to fully comply with safety requirements.
"In a manner typical of its ongoing disrespect for the environment, Mountain Valley Pipeline marked Earth Day by asking FERC for authorization to place its dangerous, unnecessary pipeline into service in late May," said Jessica Sims, the Virginia field coordinator for Appalachian Voices.
"MVP brazenly asks for this authorization while simultaneously notifying FERC that the company has completed less than two-thirds of the project to final restoration and with the mere promise that it will notify the commission when it fully complies with the requirements of a consent decree it entered into with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration last fall," she continued.
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POWHR and activists representing frontline communities affected by the pipeline are set to take part in a May 8 demonstration outside project financier Bank of America's headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Appalachian Voices noted that MVP's request comes days before pipeline developer Equitrans Midstream is set to release its 2024 first-quarter earnings information on April 30.
MVP is set to traverse much of Virginia and West Virginia, with the Southgate extension running into North Carolina. Outgoing U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and other pipeline proponents fought to include expedited construction of the project in the debt ceiling deal negotiated between President Joe Biden and congressional Republicans last year.
On Monday, climate and environmental defenders also petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, challenging FERC's approval of the MVP's planned Southgate extension, contending that the project is so different from original plans that the government's previous assent is now irrelevant.
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David Sligh, conservation director at Wild Virginia, said: "Approving the Southgate project is irresponsible. This project will pose the same kinds of threats of damage to the environment and the people along its path as we have seen caused by the Mountain Valley Pipeline during the last six years."
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Others renewed warnings about the dangers MVP poses to wildlife.
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U.S. workers' rights advocates and groups celebrated on Tuesday after the Federal Trade Commission voted 3-2 along party lines to approve a ban on most noncompete clauses, which Democratic FTC Chair Lina Khansaid "keep wages low, suppress new ideas, and rob the American economy of dynamism."
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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has suggested it plans to file a lawsuit that, as The American Prospectdetailed, "could more broadly threaten the rulemaking authority the FTC cited when proposing to ban noncompetes."
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Sandeep Vaheesan, legal director at Open Markets Institute, highlighted that the addition came after his group, SBPC, and others submitted comments on the "significant gap" in the commission's initial January 2023 proposal, and also welcomed that "the final rule prohibits both conventional noncompete clauses and newfangled versions like TRAPs."
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Democracy defenders on Tuesday hailed a ruling from a U.S. federal judge striking down a 19th-century North Carolina law criminalizing people who vote while on parole, probation, or post-release supervision due to a felony conviction.
In Monday's decision, U.S. District Judge Loretta C. Biggs—an appointee of former Democratic President Barack Obama—sided with the North Carolina A. Philip Randolph Institute and Action NC, who argued that the 1877 law discriminated against Black people.
"The challenged statute was enacted with discriminatory intent, has not been cleansed of its discriminatory taint, and continues to disproportionately impact Black voters," Biggs wrote in her 25-page ruling.
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According to Forward Justice—a nonpartisan law, policy, and strategy center dedicated to advancing racial, social, and economic justice in the U.S. South, "Although Black people constitute 21% of the voting-age population in North Carolina, they represent 42% of the people disenfranchised while on probation, parole, or post-release supervision."
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