Every Vote Matters: CA-45 Edition

The greatest challenge to Democrats every four years is getting their people out to vote. 

This is hard, grueling work mainly because of how much Democrats must overcome for this to happen. We've now seen three presidential cycles in a row in which the Republican nominee for president has had a ground game that has been next to nothing. Few, if any, paid staff on the ground. No local campaign offices. Volunteers who have to be bussed in by Elon Musk because the GOP has essentially no infrastructure to bring them in at the local level. Whereas Democrats have sophisticated recruitment tools from text messages to phone banking to door-do-door canvassing, Republicans rely on their massive ecosphere of right-wing propaganda on radio, television, and social media to whip their supporters into a frenzy. Unless you have a local Republican running for office on his or her own dime and dollar, chances are that if you are an unaffiliated voter in a swing state, you'll no longer receive direct outreach from Republicans any time soon.

What this means is that in tight, contested races, traditional outreach methods employed by Democrats can still make a difference. 

Take the current congressional race in California's 45th district, which covers parts of Orange and Los Angeles counties. This is a quintessential swing district having been represented by Republican Mimi Rodgers then by Democrat Katie Porter and now Republican Michelle Steel who was redistricted over from CA-48 in 2020. This is a majority-POC district with 38% of residents identifying as Asian and 30% identifying as Latino. It was listed as a key red-to-blue opportunity by multiple progressive organizations as Steele won re-election in 2022 with just over 52% of the vote. With the diverse demographics of the district as well as Trump's documented and ongoing xenophobia, House Democratic leadership felt that a strong Democratic candidate could potentially flip the seat. Enter Derek Tran, a son of Vietnamese refugees, veteran, and consumer rights attorney. 

Tran's campaign staff, with help from the DCCC, mapped out the 694 precincts and set up 4 staging locations across the district: one each in Cerritos, Los Alamitos, Placentia, and Westminster. By prioritizing the precincts by density, campaign staff recruited volunteers to hit the highest volume precincts first before the ones that were more sparsely populated. The reasons for this is simple: the more people in any given area the more conversations you were likely to have at the doors and the more efficiently you could use the volunteers' limited time to maximize voter contact. While these high-volume areas were receiving canvassers, those in gated apartment complexes were receiving phone calls, providing a critical 1-2 punch in order to reach as many persuadable voters as possible. In a toss-up race, each voter contact was seen as critical and one that could potentially make a huge difference should the race to go down to the wire. 

Over the weekend, Tram pulled ahead by a mere 36 votes with 94% reporting. For those keeping score at home, those 36 votes are picking up an extra vote in every 19th precinct that was canvassed. That means that scattered votes up and down the district of voters who were persuadable or who needed reminders about early voting or where to vote on Election Day will absolutely make a difference in this race. This is critical, especially now that we know that the final House count will consist of the GOP with a razor-thin majority with which they will be expected to govern. A Tram win would give Democrats their 213th seat and put even more pressure on Speaker Mike Johnson to try and herd his chaotic cats once the new session of Congress kicks off in January. 

Vote blue no matter who is more than just a motto. It's a necessity. Whether you're voting for a Congressperson in deep blue California or a school board in rural Oklahoma, these races may very well come down to a handful of votes. Don't let anyone tell you your vote doesn't matter. Don't ever take your vote for granted. As we're seeing in CA-45, a few dozen voters in the district who felt compelled to vote for the Democratic candidate might very well end up dictating which policies are or are not pursued by House Republicans over the next 2 years. Each and every vote matters. Each and every voter matters. And our democracy, although deeply damaged by the presidential result, can still be a vehicle for your voices to be heard.

No matter how blue, red, or purple your state might be. 

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