Georgia Runoff Came Down To The Ground Game

Georgia voters have spoken: Jon Ossoff and Reverend Raphael Warnock will be the next U.S. Senators from Georgia. With larger margins of victory in January than even President Joe Biden’s victory in November, it is clear that Democrats’ multi-million dollar investments in organizing, coalitions outreach, and voter protection won this election. 

“Thanks to this campaign’s hard work to mobilize a broad coalition of voters in every corner of the state, Georgia voters turned out in record numbers and flipped the Senate by electing Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock,” said Jonae Wartel, Georgia Runoff Director. “We built the strongest ground game organization this state has ever seen, and our direct outreach to make sure voters felt heard and seen is what made the difference in this election.”

The Runoff Coordinated Campaign hired the largest team in Georgia Democrats’ history, who recruited over 40,000 volunteers who engaged with the campaign. After no in-person voter contact throughout the November general election, the Runoff Coordinated Campaign quickly pivoted to building a safe door to door canvassing operation that kept organizers, volunteers, and voters safe while meeting voters where they are. This work, combined with the strong digital organizing efforts built off of the general election, resulted in over 25 million voter contact attempts and over a million conversations with Georgia voters during this runoff.

Below are some highlights of the campaign’s organizing efforts:

• The coordinated campaign made over 25 million voter contact attempts across doors, phones, and texts that resulted in conversations with over a million Georgia voters during this runoff.
• Over 40,000 volunteers engaged with the coordinated campaign to help reach out to Georgia voters both on doors and remotely, including over 7,000 volunteers in the dedicated digital organizing Slack community.
• The campaign knocked on over 1 million doors and made over 10 million voter contact attempts in the final four days of this race.
• Thanks to record investment in organizing and coalitions-specific outreach, the campaign hosted specific engagement opportunities across our broad coalition of voters, including deep investments in African American, Latino, and AAPI communities, and dedicated in-language phone banks, text banks, and canvassing for Latino and AAPI voters, along with targeted programs reaching youth, LGBTQ, veterans and military families, women, progressive, Jewish, seniors, and disability community in Georgia.
• The campaign’s voter protection hotline received over 100,000 calls, and was staffed by hundreds of dedicated volunteers, in addition to the volunteers staffing poll watching and ballot cure efforts across the state.

Read more about what it took to win:
AJC: With Ossoff victory, Democrats cement Georgia as swing state
POLITICO: How Warnock and Ossoff painted Georgia blue and flipped the Senate
NYT: Why Warnock and Ossoff Won in Georgia

DPG Team: Engaging Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Voters: Accomplishments from Georgia’s Runoff
 

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