Standouts, postcards & texting

Politically aware and active voters make up the core workers of the Democratic base. These voters pay attention to current affairs and national headlines. The GCA process creates content using established, nationally recognized Democratic candidates and progressive issues. This content encourages these voters to attend Democratic Committee-hosted, politically-focused community events. Political and civic engagement events are deployed in parallel by Democratic committees.

Between the primary and general election, there were four types of political engagement events available: candidate's event, standouts, postcards, and text parties. The weekly schedule started on Monday, with local Democratic activists hosting texting parties. Fridays were postcard parties for local and national candidates. Over the weekend, we concluded the week with community standouts for all Democratic candidates. This gave voters four types of events to pick from with the message of "getting involved locally to help elect Democrats." See Appendix E for examples of content.

The members section has examples of the content used to promote political engagement events during the 2022 election cycle. Click here to get access.

Standouts

Standouts are the most basic of campaign activities; they are used to drive awareness of candidates and issues in the community. What they are also very good at is bringing candidates' supporter bases together and building unity among supporters of different candidates. During the 2022 election cycle, I used standouts for launching canvases in the community and distributing campaign supplies. It was not hard to ask volunteers who took part in standouts to drive awareness in their own neighborhood by doing outreach to 50 Democrats that live around them.

Postcard Party

Postcard parties are the modern equivalent of the tried-and-true campaign tool of the "dear friend" card. In the modern version, a "postcard party" is a group of volunteers that get together around a table to eat pizza, talk politics, and fill out postcards for candidates in battleground states. While reminder postcards are useful in battleground states, they are most effective when used locally. Postcards from someone you know or a neighbor in your community are much more effective than a postcard to a complete stranger in another state. It is very easy to make that argument to volunteers at postcard parties and ask them to reach out to 50 registered Democrats in their neighborhood using whatever method they are most comfortable with.

Texting Party

Building off postcard parties, texting parties offer the same social experience but use technology for immediate results. The party format for volunteers' experiences is the same: they get together to eat pizza, talk politics, and send text messages. These localized text parties are a lot more effective than national text blasts to strangers. Once again, volunteers that attend the party are asked to do outreach to 50 registered Democrats in their neighborhood.

The purpose of the political engagement events is to attract the attention of the workers in the Democratic base with branded content that uses nationally recognizable candidates and issues. The content engages the voters with the goal of getting them to attend events in their community and possibly doing outreach to 50 Democrats that live in their neighborhood. Civic and political engagement events are intended to capture the attention of the voting public and raise awareness of local Democratic activity. Engagement events use a four-week promotional cycle as part of the GCA process to drive awareness.

To see how the GCA promotional cycle works, click here.