On The Hunt For A Single Undecided Voter

PHILADELPHIA All the trainings. All the walking. All the doors knocked on, to open just a crack or slam shut. All the campaign literature that ends up in the trash. All the hours doing this, repeating this routine, having the same conversations it ultimately comes down to securing votes. Even a single vote. Thats the best any canvasser can hope for.

Hi, my name is Brian. Im with For Our Future Pennsylvania, and Im looking for Ms. Dionna, says 38-year-old Brian Phelps, announcing himself as a volunteer canvasser with the local chapter of the labor union-backed super PAC.

Ms. Dionna, like the vast majority of people Phelps is trying to speak with today, is not on the other side of the door. Not home or moved. Phelps makes a note in his canvassing app and moves on to the next house in this stretch of Hunting Park, a mostly lower-income neighborhood in North Philadelphia where Democratic-aligned groups are trying to turn out the vote for Vice President Kamala Harris .

Phelps has traveled here from Maryland to assist with the massive on-the-ground effort to reach what algorithms and analysts have determined are the most persuadable and lowest-propensity voters the people who, with a nudge from a canvasser, might turn out for Harris on Tuesday.

Its Phelps first day on the doors in Philadelphia, and things arent off to a great start. His first hour was basically a bust. Even when theyre not home, were doing the work, he says, trying to stay upbeat. Were Democrats . We do the work.

There are thousands upon thousands of doors being knocked right now in Pennsylvania, neighborhoods being canvassed and re-canvassed, in a state that will determine the outcome of the election. This work is undertaken by a variety of groups, some that are able to legally coordinate with the Harris campaign and some, like For Our Future, that are not . But their objective is the same: turn voters out for Harris, vice presidential nominee Tim Walz and Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, who is fending off a challenge from Republican David McCormick.

The Harris campaign alone is on track to knock on 5 million doors by Election Day, according to a senior campaign official. That number represents almost 40% of the population and nearly the total number of households in the state, though its likely many of the contacts are repeats. For Our Future has also knocked on over half a million doors since September.

For these door-knockers, a days work, in a swing state where literally every single last vote matters, often comes down to just a single conversation. 

The vast, vast, vast majority of doors, nobody answers. Thats just most of the experience, says Jamie DeMarco, a state-level director with the Chesapeake Climate Network Action Fund, who was training canvassers last weekend in the Germantown headquarters of For Our Future. Youre shifting through that haystack to find that needle of that person who only an in-person conversation could move.

Most of the people who sign up to canvass dont need to be convinced of the stakes of this coin-flip election, but DeMarco drives them home anyway in the 30-minute training he gives to volunteers before theyre let loose: We are here today because whoever wins Pennsylvania has a greater than 90% chance of winning the White House. And the past two cycles, Pennsylvania has determined the victors. It has flip-flopped and been determined by just a few tens of thousands of votes every time.

Trump won Pennsylvania, the swing state with the most Electoral College votes, by less than a percentage point in 2016, while Biden won it by slightly more than a percentage point in 2020. Now Harris and Trump are virtually tied here, a few days out from the election.

If somebody wins in a landslide, then what you did on the ground, knocking on doors, probably wouldnt have made the difference either way, DeMarco says. But when someone wins by less than a percentage point, you know the ground game is what made a difference.

As impossible as it might be to believe, there are still undecided voters out there, even this close to the election. A recent swing-state poll pegged the percentage of likely voters in the commonwealth who havent made up their minds at just over 2% more than the winning margin in the last two presidential elections. These are the people that both sides, in theory, are trying to identify and get to the polls.

But Democrats, by many accounts, are having more conversations like the ones Phelps was attempting to have last weekend on peoples doorsteps. Trumps campaign, unlike in past elections, doesnt seem to have an equivalent operation in swing states. It has instead outsourced in-person voter outreach to partisan groups like Turning Point Action and Elon Musks America PAC , while the campaign itself has made recruiting activist poll watchers the focus of its grassroots efforts. That reality is borne out in the data by a wide margin, more registered voters reported being contact by the Harris campaign than the Trump campaign in recent weeks, according to the latest Gallup survey .

Why is only one side investing in trying to talk directly to swing voters? Its easier to throw money at commercials and mailers or, with respect to Trumps campaign, mobilize volunteers with an eye toward possibly contesting the results. The doors, meanwhile, can be a slog. They require patience, precision and a good pitch that is reinforced at the top of the ticket. It often takes hours just to identify one persuadable voter. Then you have to convince that person to actually vote for your candidate. And even then, theres little guarantee that conversation will materialize into someone actually voting. There are people who will say anything to get someone off their doorstep.

Just ask Phelps and his canvassing partner, Veronica Bell, a 63-year-old paid organizer with For Our Future. Bell has been knocking doors since 2016, and working full-time on this election since April. For a time, Bell was affiliated with the Democratic Party , but I wanted to be more in service to my neighborhood, she says, so she turned to a more local operation. And Bell is as good at this work as they come: She knows the city, is outgoing and friendly, not too pushy but pushy enough. Bell knows when to keep a conversation going and when to move on.

Yall were just at my door yesterday, and I told yall yes, a woman snaps at Bell and Phelps through a doorbell camera. Its not uncommon for homes in highly targeted neighborhoods to be canvassed multiple times.

Thank you, Bell says, already looking up her next address. We got 10 days!

Bell has a few hard and fast rules for canvassing: Knock once or twice, then step back from the door and wait for someone to answer. Dont unlock a gate or enter an apartment building. Dont ask a child to open a door. Assume youre always being recorded on doorbell cameras. No lit in mailboxes.

The vast majority of addresses that pop up in MiniVAN, the mobile canvassing app, do not provide Bell and Phelps with the opportunity to make a pitch for Harris and Casey. But the outlook improves once they get through the first two dozen houses.

Will you be supporting Kamala Harris? Phelps asks a guy who looks like he was just sleeping.

I dont know.

Were 10 days in! Who are you voting for?

I dont know.

You dont know, but youre going to vote?

Yeah.

Look up Kamala, see what she stands for. Because you know what the other guy stands for? A lot of lies. Dont believe it. You wonder how he gets to be on the ballot when hes tried for 34 felonies. I know a guy who had two felonies 30 years ago and he couldnt work for the post office.

Bell leaves him with some literature and thanks him for his time. And then its on to another block. And another.

Theyre nearly ready to break for lunch when they meet Tahir Hightower, a 39-year-old cook and entrepreneur who says he doesnt like either candidate.

Hightower may be the closest they come all day to a persuadable voter. Only, Hightower isnt necessarily someone who doesnt know about the candidates. He just doesnt see how voting for either one might help him or the country. Its arguably tougher to get someone to see the utility in voting than selling someone on the merits of a particular candidate.

Ive seen Kamala, but she says the same thing that Obama said, and nothings really changed, Hightower tells Bell, who asks him if hes seen Project 2025, the widely unpopular right-wing blueprint for a second Trump term.

I did. But I dont think hes bad, Hightower says of Trump. How do we know what to believe? Im not saying Im OK with him. Im just undecided.

Bell asks him if he has daughters and sisters. Hightower says he does, and Bell tries to close the pitch with reproductive rights.

Were talking about the right to have a say-so over your own body. Government should not tell you that, she says.

Youre right about that. So Donald Trump is against that, thats what youre saying?

Yes. You told me you read Project 2025. Read some more.

I aint letting that stuff scare me.

10 days.

I know.

Think about your daughters and your sisters.

I am, Hightower says, signaling that hes ready to end the conversation and go back inside. Im thinking about it. I just dont know.