Research and Results >> Results
Evidence-Based Approach to Volunteering
Swing Blue Alliance maximizes the effectiveness its campaigns with an evidence-based approach to messaging, targeting, and design. We evaluate and use the results to fine-tune the methods of subsequent efforts. This iterative approach has allowed us to achieve and document notable successes in all election cycles since 2020.
Whether it’s mail campaigns, phone banking, or canvassing, we use this approach to make the best use of our volunteers’ time.
Many of the elections we target have been (or are expected to be) closely-contested, with winning margins of 2% or less. Even efforts that appear to have a modest effect on voter registration or turnout can garner enough additional Democratic votes to swing an election into the ‘Win’ column for progressive candidates and ballot measures, particularly when our campaigns are executed in concert with partner organizations across the country.
Some highlights from our efforts are organized into three sections below: Actions that volunteers took to help, the Impact that actions had on an election, and the overall Outcome of elections in which Swing Blue Alliance volunteers campaigned.
You can also explore more detailed results from recent election cycles via the links to the right.
Highlighted volunteer actions since 2020:
- In 2023, facilitated 31,000 conversations via canvassing and phone banking, sent nearly 200,000 postcards, and raised over $100,000 for campaigns.
- In 2022, sponsored 25 mailing campaigns in collaboration with partner organizations, featuring 460,000 cards and letters sent by more than 5,000 volunteers and 213 hosts in 19 states.
- Wrote 1.77 million postcards and letters in 2020 advocating for Democrats to use their right to vote by mail.
- Made 1.76 million phone calls in 2020 to encourage Democratic voters to request and return their ballots.
- Sent 475,000 postcards to get out the vote in the 2022 midterms.
- Wrote 460,000 postcards and made 125,000 phone calls to support Democratic candidates in the 2020 senate runoff election in Georgia.
- Sent over 50,000 postcards in 2021 to advocate for voter protection legislation.
- Made over 30,000 calls in 2022 to recruit volunteers for Democratic actions in swing states.
Swing Blue coordinates with field leaders from grassroots groups across the country to discuss current research on field tactics, collecting data in our research repository. For mailing campaigns, and in collaboration with our partners and the Analyst Institute, Swing Blue designs and executes randomized control trials to help determine the effectiveness of postcard and letter-writing tactics at achieving the desired outcomes.
Some of the successes our Research team has confirmed via statistical analysis since 2020:
- Our randomized controlled trial (RCT) of GOTV postcards for the 2023 Wisconsin Supreme Court election showed a positive effect for voters under 40 years of age. This cohort was 1.4% more likely to vote than the control group (p = 0.071, 90% confidence interval +0.11% to +2.8%.)
- RCT for the 2023 Ohio ballot initiative: intervention subjects were 1.2% more likely to vote than the control group (p=0.07, 90% confidence interval +0.11% to +2.3%.)
- In Bucks County, letters with vote-by-mail ballot applications were sent to a carefully targeted group in advance of the Pennsylvania primary. Those who received letters were 2.7% more likely to vote than those who were not sent letters.
- A 2020 postcard campaign in Sarasota County, Florida demonstrated statistically significant increases in Democratic vote-by-mail registration. The control group received no postcard, and enrolled at a 6.6% rate. The intervention group enrollment rates were 7.3% (no postage on reply cards) and 12.2% (stamps on reply cards). On a per-enrollment cost basis, postcards with stamps on the reply card were 4.23 times as cost effective as no-postage reply cards.
- In 2020, registered Democrats in Broward County, Florida were sent 2-part postcards with return postage on the tear off applications. Overall, these vote-by-mail postcards increased the likelihood that an individual would vote in the November, 2020 general election by 2.6% (95% confidence interval 0.0197-0.0322). The effect was greatest for Afro-Americans but null for Hispanic Americans.
- Similarly, in Palm Beach Country, registered Democrats were sent postcards with applications for mail-in ballots for the November 2020 presidential election. Subjects who received postcards that included return postage were about 10% more likely to request mail-in ballots than subjects who received no postcard.
- Our research shows that a number of campaigns did not produce the measurable gains we were hoping for. This is all part of the learning process by which we improve our selection of target races, our target demographics, and our methods.
Here are some of the outcomes of elections in which Swing Blue Alliance played a role. For more details, please consult the links in the right-hand column.
- Most of the outcomes of the 2023 elections went our way, capped off by the No in August campaign in Ohio, defeating the ballot initiative that would have dealt a blow in the fight to preserve abortion rights.
- In 2023, several Swing Blue Alliance campaigns helped to flip the Virginia House of Delegates and hold the Senate, an outcome that reversed narrow losses experienced in 2021.
- Also in 2023, we mobilized to flip the Wisconsin Supreme court. Our candidate, Judge Janet Protasiewicz, won.
- The 2022 midterm elections in New Hampshire saw the Democrats gain 22 seats in its House of Representatives and successfully protect its all-Democratic representation in the US Congress, in part due to extensive support of Swing Blue Alliance volunteers.
- Thanks in part to Swing Blue Alliance and similar organizations, Democrats were able to secure victories in both the 2022 Governor and US Senate races in Pennsylvania and squeeze out a narrow majority in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.