Cultivating the Ground for Truth

Swing Left’s New Canvassing Program

By Steve Schear

Trump may not be intellectually smart, but he’s a master of distraction. Like a magician getting you to look at his right hand while his left hides a coin, Trump uses outrage to grab attention. Statements about taking Greenland, ending birthright citizenship or running again in 2028, along with such actions as the White House ballroom, sinking Venezuelan boats, and other abuses of power keep attention on him while he rips off America. All those distractions keep people talking about what Trump is saying and doing, and not focused on cuts in healthcare, rising prices, and above all our urgent need to win the midterms.

How We Can Beat the Con Man and MAGA’s Propaganda Machine

One organization that is keeping its eyes on the midterm prize is Swing Left with its Ground Truth program. Swing Left has targeted 19 House seats we can flip from red to blue in November, plus 14 Democratic seats we need to make sure we hold.

Identifying purple districts is not new or difficult. What is new is Swing Left’s method of organizing. It combines old-fashioned talking to people with the latest AI. It’s a “knock on every door, talk with anyone, listen to everyone” strategy. After years of losing voters, Ground Truth is designed to expand the number of Democrats.

How Ground Truth Works — The Approach

Ground Truth starts with a listening canvass, the easiest door-knocking because volunteers are not trying to persuade anyone of anything. The purpose is to collect information and build relationships. Canvassers begin by asking, Do you think the country is going in the right or wrong direction? Volunteers are trained to use that starting point to engage each person at the door.

At some point during the discussion, the volunteer asks, “How likely are you to vote on a 1 to 10 scale?” Then “How likely are you to vote Democratic?” After each encounter, canvassers dictate details from their conversations into the new People app, developed in partnership with Everybody Techworks, using its voice-to-text feature. All that provides very valuable qualitative information that can be stored and shared to shape later persuasion canvassing; to see how effectively persuasion is working; and to determine where to concentrate GOTV efforts in October.

This past fall Swing Left pilot-tested its Ground Truth program and the People app in 14 purple districts. According to Zack Malitz, Swing Left’s Managing Director, “people are really hungry to be heard. Two-thirds of people who answered their doors had conversations with volunteers for at least 10 minutes.” Take it from me, a veteran canvasser. Ten minutes is a lot longer than the typical contacts in most Democratic campaigns.

Zack Malitz

“We found that both the volunteers and the voters are actually excited to have much longer conversations,” Malitz added. “It’s much more natural and easy to have a longer conversation than a scripted, shorter one. A lot of voters want to have that conversation. The volunteers have a much better experience because talking with people, asking them questions, and listening, is a really pleasant experience, even if you disagree.”

The Potential to Move Republicans to Our Side

The pilot project “uncovered a major blind spot in traditional outreach,” says Malitz. “One in four voters coded as Republicans — either through registration or modeled partisanship — expressed concern about Trump, or openness to voting for Democrats, or alignment with progressive priorities. This indicates to us that conventional Democratic voter contact efforts are overlooking potentially persuadable voters.”

Malitz, who lives in Portland, Oregon, went on a Ground Truth canvass in nearby Congressional District 5. “I knocked on a woman’s door, and she opened with, ‘You don’t want to talk to me, I’m a Republican.’ And I said, ‘No, no, I do want to talk to you.’ And we talked for several minutes and after a while she said, ‘Well, I do sometimes vote for Democrats.’ That’s a person who, because of her voting history, is not on your standard Democratic campaign list.” Will Democrats win her vote? “I have no idea,” says Malitz. “But we might. The door is now open, literally and figuratively.”

Organizing Ground Truth

Swing Left works with local partner organizations and activists. “One of the principles of Swing Left is that you don’t have to be Swing Left,” Malitz said. “Everywhere you go there’s some kind of democratic political organization, however informal, however small. So we’ll reach out to the people who have already organized themselves.”

People in blue or red districts can participate in Ground Truth by traveling to a target Congressional District or phone banking with voters in these districts. Again, the focus now is on listening and obtaining information. When volunteer callers find enthusiastic Democrats, they can be asked to canvass. “We hope we will generate volunteers not just in places where we’re already strong, but in places where we aren’t,” says Malitz.

Swing Left Provides High Quality Training

I attended two online Ground Truth trainings, one for general volunteers and another for people who want to host a canvass. Both were excellent, concise, informative and lively.

Don’t Let Fear Stop Us

For most people, it takes some courage to canvass for the first time. But hey, we’re talking about defeating fascism. Swing Left is not asking anyone to parachute beyond enemy lines to help the French Resistance. It’s just talking with people you don’t know.

I have had lots of experience of talking with Republicans while canvassing. The overwhelming majority were regular people with decent values who were badly misinformed by the right-wing propaganda machine. As Malitz says, “It can be a really magical experience for both people, even when they deeply disagree. It’s been very rare that I haven’t found some common ground with somebody I’ve talked to.”

Don’t let Trump’s distractions fool you. The midterms are key to taking power from MAGA in 2026, at least taking back the House. That will stop Republicans from passing bad laws and give Democrats leverage for budget negotiations. Along with winning the House, Ground Truth can begin to change the balance of power for the long-term by moving Independents, Republicans and non-voters to the pro-democracy side.

To regain power, we need people who don’t think like us to change their minds. To help accomplish that, sign up for Ground Truth at swingleft.org/commit.

Steve Schear is an organizer from Oakland, California. He will be canvassing with Ground Truth in California’s Central Valley in February, March and April.