Judith Davidoff
Motivated by “today’s political climate,” Sam Million-Weaver phone banks weekly with HRC.
There is a long table and some landline phones, but most of the volunteers are sitting around the spacious room on cushy sofas and working on their own mobile devices. Phone banking, like most everything else, has gone digital.
Instead of working off massive paper lists of voter information, the volunteers are logging onto a program that contains voter names and contact details; even better, there are checklists where callers can easily record the results of the contact, including whether the voter was home and planning to vote on Nov. 6 in the midterm elections.
This Thursday evening phonebank at the OutReach office near the Dane County Regional Airport gets going at 5:30 but people continue to trickle in as they get off from work. Volunteers are trying to drum up support for U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin — who is facing a challenge from state Sen. Leah Vukmir — and other Wisconsin Democrats, including Tony Evers, Sarah Godlewski, Mark Pocan, Mandela Barnes and Josh Kaul.
The phone bank is organized by the Human Rights Campaign. The national LGBTQ rights group has recently established a local presence, with a statewide director and a regional organizer, Davette Baker, whose territory largely includes Dane County and Rock County.
It’s part of a multi-state effort to elect pro-equality candidates in 2018 and beyond, says Wendy Strout, Wisconsin state director.
“We are putting more political capital on the ground, more staff on the ground,” says Strout, who is based in Milwaukee. “We are building a program and infrastructure to continue this work past this election.” The goal is to “add value” to the work already being done by the LGBTQ and progressive community, she adds.
Tonight there’s a special guest at the phone bank: Chad Griffin, president of the HRC, who rallies volunteers before they hit the phones.
“We have an opportunity this election. There are distractions happening all over this country, and God knows coming out of this ridiculously insane and hateful White House. But we can’t get distracted.… They don’t want us to focus on this election. They are afraid of rooms like this. You are what they fear. Because you’re an army that’s taking our resistance and actually turning that into electoral power and pulling the emergency brake this November on this president, this vice president and these complicit members of the House and of the Senate. This is where we have the power to make change.”
Judith Davidoff
Regional organizer Davette Baker (left) had a cake waiting for Human Rights Campaign president Chad Griffin, who told volunteers their work had the power to make change.
Stout was hired in November 2017 and Baker in May 2018. This summer Baker started recruiting and training volunteers to do canvassing and phone banking. She works with other local groups, including the Dane County Democrats, on door-to-door canvassing drives.
Sam Million-Weaver, who moved to Madison in March to start a science writing job at UW, heard about the group’s local efforts through a Facebook invite and attended a training led by Baker. An “out and proud gay man,” he’s donated to the national group for years but says “today’s political climate demands drastic action to prevent the ongoing assault on the LGBTQ community.” He now phone banks weekly with the group.
“Davette’s been an amazing friend and mentor to help me find my voice and take positive action in the fight for equality,” says Million-Weaver.
Baker says she works hard to build community, talking to each of the volunteers at every event. And she also tries to make things fun — even phone banking. She has adapted “phone bank bingo,” a game she learned about from Charles Myers, state chair of the Young Democrats of Wisconsin, for her events. Volunteers get to cross off boxes with such choices as “dogs barking,” “answers but hangs up” and “cranky older person.” Once they get a straight line, they get a prize.
It’s motivating and helps the time pass, says Baker.
Judith Davidoff
After Griffin's pep talk, volunteers called targeted voters seeking support for Tammy Baldwin, Mark Pocan and other candidates.
HRC’s political action committee is also investing in Wisconsin as part of a $2 million “Votes Conquer Hate” ad campaign in seven key states. The group has funded video ads targeting Leah Vukmir that are aimed at Wisconsin supporters of LGBTQ equality, which, by HRC’s research, stands at 560,000 voters.
And here is where the phone banks come in. Volunteers are reaching out to voters who are, among other things, supportive of marriage equality and laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender, to encourage them to vote. The night at OutReach, Griffin reminds volunteers that they, once again, have a chance to make history by reelecting Tammy Baldwin, the first openly gay U.S. senator. And he says their work is crucial.
“There are going to be no landslides in this country. Every single race is going to be close. We’re going to win based on turnout. Every person you talk to. Every single door you knock on literally could make the difference in what this state looks like, who you have in the United States Senate, who you have as governor. Every single call.”
[Editor's Note: This article was updated to correct the spelling of Wendy Strout's last name.]