Archives for 2024

Posting things online is not actually more useful for winning elections than talking to voters. https://t.co/e2I1rmVJqh

— Philip Bump (@pbump) May 8, 2024

But seriously: Philip Bump, writing for the Washington Post, is always informative — “No, posting is not better political activism than talking to voters” [gift link]:

Matt Yglesias is one of the more popular voices on the pro-Biden internet. That’s his framing, not mine; his newsletter “Slow Boring” is targeted to centrist Democrats interested in the nuances of how policy can address the country’s problems or at least people who like to think that they are. To use another metric to establish his bona fides, Yglesias is at the level of a commentator who gets profiled in The Washington Post.

Because he has that influence, his offering Tuesday morning deserves a response. Not because it is too generous or insufficiently generous to President Biden as it attempts to explain to readers how they can best aid Biden’s reelection. Instead, it is because it offers a notably bad assessment of the relative values of posting stuff on the internet vs. talking to actual voters.

The post is titled “How to make a difference in the 2024 election” and offers advice to that effect.

“I think it’s actually true that two of the best things you can do to defeat the MAGA movement do, in fact, happen online: giving money intelligently and posting mindfully,” Yglesias wrote…

This is bad advice, regardless of who you want elected.

We should start by reviewing what political campaigns want to do. The short version is “get votes.” But peel off the top layer and you can see the complexity underneath. Campaigns don’t get votes by encouraging everyone to vote, just adults who are registered to do so. And they don’t want to spend time getting every registered voter to cast a ballot, only the ones they think — or know — will vote for their candidate.

That part alone is complicated. Campaigns conduct polls to get a sense of who generally supports their candidates. If they find, for example, that White women over 65 overwhelmingly do, then they are going to do their best to get those White women to vote. They will, at times, engage in efforts to ensure those women know where, when and how to cast a ballot.

If they learn that Hispanic men under 45 can be persuaded by a particular argument, on the other hand, they will try to make that argument to those men. That includes direct mail and television ads in places those voters will be watching, sure. But it also means reaching out directly — presenting the argument to specific Hispanic men in that age group and recording whether it was effective. By which I mean: Asking the voters if they’ll vote for their candidate and writing it down, so that those who are convinced can be reminded where, when and how to cast their ballots.

You can see the points where legwork is required. The more volunteers a campaign has, the more specific, registered White women it can ensure vote before or on Election Day by reminding them with phone calls or by knocking on their doors. The more volunteers, the better the campaign can talk to those Hispanic men in the relevant electoral district and then engage in that same get-out-the-vote messaging with the ones who have been persuaded…

And here I am… posting on the internet, yes. But whatever my personal efforts, Mr. Bump’s argument is worth reading in full. I don’t know if you can subscribe to his weekly How to Read This Chart newsletter if you’re not a WaPo subscriber, but I’d recommend it!

Friday Evening Open Thread: <em>Damn You, P-Bump!</em>Post + Comments (124)