Democrats Seek Ways to Replant Grass Roots
The Party is Attempting to Re-Energize the Voters That Helped It Win in 2008
COLUMBUS, Ohio—Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy won her seat in Congress by less than a percentage point in 2008, and polls suggest the first-term Democrat is in a perilous position this year. Her best chance at survival may come in the shape of Matt Caffrey, a senior at Ohio State University.
Mr. Caffrey, the 21-year-old president of the College Democrats at Ohio State, has pledged to help register 10,000 student voters by early October. As nearly 55,000 OSU students began returning for the fall semester on Sunday, Mr. Caffrey's team was going door to door at off-campus apartments and had volunteers stationed at registration sites, slipping voting material in front of students while they were in the mood to fill out paperwork.
Mobilizing Democratic "base voters" is one of the last tools left to the party as it attempts to counter a rise in anti-Washington feelings that appears certain to boost Republicans this November. Two years ago, minorities and young voters helped push Barack Obama to victory and give Democrats a commanding majority in the House. More than a dozen of the 21 House seats that Democrats took from the GOP that year were in districts with a higher-than-average share of African-American and younger voters.
Now, polls show that enthusiasm among those voters has subsided, while Republicans are benefiting from a rush of energy among voters supporting the GOP. Party leaders believe resurrecting the Obama campaign's field operation from 2008 can stir many base voters and eke out wins in enough razor-thin races to stave off a Republican takeover of the House.
Organizing for America, the entity created under the Democratic National Committee to maintain the Obama campaign's field operation and its small-donor fund-raising network, is spending $50 million on the midterm elections—much of it devoted to motivating those voters.
"We have to re-energize the enthusiasm we had during the Obama '08 campaign and remind people who voted for Obama that we can't lose the House now," said Harold Elder, a 53-year-old heating and air-conditioning contractor, who is helping Ms. Kilroy and other Democrats reach African-Americans in urban areas of Columbus, Ohio.
Mr. Obama, who has visited Ohio six times this year, will help by appearing at several rallies in the final weeks of the campaign. Rallies are planned in the university city of Madison, Wis., with others in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Nevada.
The $50 million is almost three times the amount spent by national Democrats in 2006, during the previous midterm election cycle, according to the DNC. Of that, about $20 million has been transferred directly to other Democratic groups, such as the Democratic Governors Association.
The other $30 million is being spent to build networks of volunteers in the 70 districts most important to Democratic control of the House, and to maintain organizers in all 435 congressional districts, according to people involved in the effort.
The money is also underwriting the party's nerve center at DNC headquarters in Washington, where more than 40 staffers, including about a dozen software and data managers, coordinate turnout efforts.
Every time a Democratic volunteer talks to a voter in Ms. Kilroy's district or any of the other targeted races, another entry about their readiness or reluctance to support party candidates is relayed into the system. By Election Day, local organizers in every key district will have lists of thousands of voters who appear ready to vote Democratic, showing what needs to be done to get them to the polls.
"We will have enough volunteer leaders to make sure we touch them all," said Jeremy Bird, Organizing for America's deputy national director.
Senior Democrats have no illusions that they can reverse the negative trends for their party, but maintain that very tight races can still be tipped in their favor. David Plouffe, the president's 2008 campaign manager, said the 140 million who voted in 2008 would fall to around 80 million, "a big drop-off. And a lot of those people happen to be Democrats."
"The best way to turn a 52-48 loss to a 51-49 win is to adjust the turnout," Mr. Plouffe said.
Republican leaders scoff at the suggestion that a get-out-the-vote effort can overcome the low level of enthusiasm among Democratic voters. Over the past two years, those voters have already proved difficult to motivate. In 2009, minority and young voters largely abandoned Democrat Creigh Deeds in the governor's race in Virginia—despite a big effort there to repeat the turnout phenomenon of 2008.
The GOP also reports a sizable increase in volunteers, as expectations rise that the party will make big gains. Doug Heye, spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said last week the party's turnout operation had already made contact with 12.5 million voters this year, three times as many as at the same time in 2008.
Ms. Kilroy, the congresswoman from Ohio, strongly backed Mr. Obama on health care, supported the first round of stimulus funding, and served on the conference committee that hammered out the overhaul of financial-services regulations. She trailed Republican Steve Stivers, a former state senator and Iraq veteran, by nearly five points in August, in the last public poll. Approval ratings for her party and president have fallen in national surveys since then.
To help Ms. Kilory and other Democrats, Mr. Caffrey, the Ohio State senior, and other Democratic activists plan to visit thousands of dorm rooms and apartments over the next six weeks. On Election Day, the College Democrats and hundreds of party volunteers will be ready to transport to the polls any students who support Ms. Kilroy.
"We're going to be aggressive about knocking on every door," Mr. Caffrey said in an interview last week. "If we do that, we win."
—Jonathan Weisman contributed to this article. Write to Douglas A. Blackmon at doug.blackmon@wsj.com
