MoveOn's 'Call for Change' Phone Bank and Timely Money Put Senate Dems Over the Top

Members' Calls to Infrequent Democratic and Independent Voters Helped Dems Win Majority

Contact: Trevor Fitzgibbon of Fenton Communications

"Call for Change," a newly-created web-based phone program, allowed over 185,000 volunteers to make over 7 million GOTV phone calls to Democratic and independent voters in tight Senate and House races in the closing days of the campaign.

The "liquid phone bank," was created by MoveOn.org Political Action for this election cycle so that members anywhere in the country could focus phone calls, on short notice, into any state or district needing special attention.

The flexibility of MoveOn's GOTV effort also helped to outmaneuver Karl Rove's much trumpeted 72-hour program.  From their homes, MoveOn members were able to call into the most competitive races up until the polls closed.  The calls were constantly re-directed throughout Election Day into the key races in order to put the Democratic candidate over the top.

"We want to congratulate these new senators for running strategic campaigns that brought them to victory.  Our members are excited to have helped play a roll in putting them over the top and are looking forward to working with them to bring our troops home from Iraq," said Eli Pariser, MoveOn.org Political Action executive director.

Members called from their homes and with their cell phones at house parties to lists of voters that had been "micro-targeted" using techniques previously employed successfully by Republican campaigns.

In the final week of the election, MoveOn members made 345,000 calls into Virginia and raised $260,000 in the last four days for John Tester in Montana.

In the six Senate Democratic pick-up seats, MoveOn members' get-out-the-vote calls far exceeded the winners' margins of victory:

CANDIDATE: Claire McCaskill (MO); MO PHONE CALLS: 230,808; WINNING MARGIN: 41,969; CONTRIBUTIONS: $399,388.20

CANDIDATE: Jon Tester (MT); MO PHONE CALLS: 73,843; WINNING MARGIN: 1,739; CONTRIBUTIONS: $353,274.96

CANDIDATE: Sherrod Brown (OH); MO PHONE CALLS: 1,009,103; WINNING MARGIN: 451,564; CONTRIBUTIONS: $331,049.54

CANDIDATE: Bob Casey (PA); MO PHONE CALLS: 808,170; WINNING MARGIN: 683,584; CONTRIBUTIONS: $188,907.00

CANDIDATE: Sheldon Whitehouse (RI); MO PHONE CALLS: 87,003; WINNING MARGIN: 26,726; CONTRIBUTIONS: $3,516.59

CANDIDATE: Jim Webb (VA); MO PHONE CALLS: 503,181; WINNING MARGIN: 8,047; CONTRIBUTIONS: $17,156.00
 
 

• Volunteers made 7 million phone calls, organized 7,500 house parties, and launched 6,000 in-district events.  More people volunteered in 2006 than in 2004.

• We raised and spent $27 million in this two-year election cycle.  We spent $25 million on taking back the House.  Over 250,000 members contributed $3.6 million to individual House candidates and over $2.8 million to fund MoveOn TV ads in targeted districts.

• Our “Caught Red-Handed” TV ads demonstrated early that Democrats could win a majority in Congress by taking on Republicans others thought couldn’t be defeated.  Of the nine long-shot races we targeted with these ads, Democrats won at least five.

• On-the-ground action by members helped ensure that Republicans who supported the Bush fiasco in Iraq would pay the price at the polls.

• We funded strong progressive candidates like Jerry McNerney (OH) and Bruce Braley (IA) in their campaigns to win House seats, and Sherrod Brown (OH) and John Tester (MT) in their tough Senate battles.

• Our membership grew by 450,000.