In November 2021, the KDP worked with an organization called Contest Every Race (CER) to help recruit candidates to run for offices up-and-down the ticket in 2022. Among the results that CER provided at the end of the program are both individuals who are interested in running for office and those who were willing to help get Democrats elected even if they themselves do not want to run for office.
Along with CER texting Democrats on the voter file, opt-in text lists from progressive partners (such as MoveOn.org, the National Democratic Training Committee, and Run For Something [RFS]) were also texted.
Both lists were provided without the unique voter file identifier to county parties. To make it easier for county parties to access these individuals, the results were matched to the Kentucky Voter File with survey questions and activist codes created to identify these individuals.
ACTIVIST CODES
To identify where these leads originated, four distinct Activist Codes were created to determine the list the voter came from. In some instances, they could have been on multiple lists. Those activist code names and descriptions are below.
| Activist Code Name | Activist Code Description | Voter Count |
|---|---|---|
KDP_CER_MoveOn | Leads from MoveOn.org through Contest Every Race | 670 |
KDP_CER_NDTC | Leads from NDTC through Contest Every Race | 182 |
KDP_CER_VF | Leads from Voter File (KDP) through Contest Every Race | 3839 |
KDP_CER_RFS | Leads from Run For Something (RFS) through Contest Every Race | 185 |
USE CASES
Along with these voters being excellent prospects for candidate recruitment, knowing the source of these leads can be important to local party building.
For instance, of the 185 leads from RFS, 106 (57.3%) are under the age of 35. Of the 670 leads from MoveOn, 177 (26.4%) are under the age of 35 while 406 total (61%) are the age of 50. When combining all of the MoveOn, NDTC, and RFS, there are 1037 combined leads and 336 (32.4%) are under the age of 35. With these figures in mind, county parties could use the Run For Something, MoveOn, and NDTC leads to recruit and build out their local Young Democrats chapters.
SURVEY QUESTIONS
To identify the specific offices that these individuals are interested in running for, a survey question was created to make this information available to users. The survey question's name and the six available options that users can search on is shown below:
USE CASES
By making these responses available in VAN, users can look at the individuals' voter file record. Knowing this will help those recruiting candidates know exactly which districts the individual can run in. In addition, if the candidate does not run in the 2022 election cycle, this survey question will allow those recruiting candidates in future cycles to know those individuals who are interested in running for office AND which office(s) the person may be interested in.
LIST PULLING NOTES
While the activist code and survey question can be used on their own to determine which list the person came from and which office they are interested in running for, the two can be combined while creating lists.
EXAMPLE 1:
For example, let's say that a user wants to identify those individuals from the "Run For Something" list who want to run for school board. By selecting the "KDP_CER_RFS" activist code along with the "4 - School Board" survey response, the user could identify these individuals (shown in the screenshots below) in a single step.
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EXAMPLE 2:
While all of the individuals in question have been matched to the voter file, some of the leads were on the lists from progressive partners. By combining the activist code and survey question, users could identify those voters who were on those partners list based upon the file KDP was given.
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