When I volunteered for Kamala Harris a few weeks ago in a swing district in the New York commuter belt, I was assured by Democratic Party organizers that their ground game would cream Donald Trump.
Though the polls were showing the two contenders running neck and neck, the confidence was understandable.
This, after all, was the party machine that generated more than 81 million votes for Joe Biden the last time round.
And it was better funded than ever. Nearly a billion dollars had poured into the party’s coffers since the start of 2023, well over twice what Trump had raised in the same period.
When I volunteered for Kamala Harris a few weeks ago in a swing district in the New York commuter belt, I was assured by Democratic Party organizers that their ground game would cream Donald Trump. (Pictured: Kamala Harris’s campaign poster).
The campaign in New York’s 17th district focused not on Kamala but Mondaire Jones, a gay, black former congressman who was challenging a pro-Trump incumbent, Mike Lawler, for a seat in the House of Representatives.
Jones had all the charisma Harris lacked and, if he defeated Lawler, there was a fighting chance Kamala would pick up additional votes on his coat tails.
At 37, Jones was a made-for-Instagram candidate. And, with registered Democrats outnumbering Republicans by some 80,000 in the district, I thought we were in with a good shout.
Yet what I found soon changed my mind: a self-regarding shambles of a campaign staffed by temporary workers with little experience, less know-how and, apparently, zero interest in talking to Main Street America.
My turf included the affluent Westchester County horse country – home to the sprawling estates of high-profile Dems like Richard Gere and David Letterman – as well as hard-knock Hudson River towns like Ossining, where employment is provided by the Sing Sing supermax.
I’d been assigned to a campaign office in the attractive commuter village of Mount Kisco, one of three the Democrats had opened in the district. But it was a disappointing start.
There were just a few scruffy posters on the rather grubby door. Outside, Harris’s trademark ‘not going back’ signs were nowhere to be seen.
One smartly dressed woman strolling by told me she thought our headquarters was an abandoned shop.
Then I met my new bosses. It’s fair to say they were young – and that some of them knew little about the area we were canvassing.
The campaign in New York’s 17th district focused not on Kamala but Mondaire Jones (pictured), a gay, black former congressman who was challenging a pro-Trump incumbent, Mike Lawler, for a seat in the House of Representatives.
Jones had all the charisma Harris lacked and, if he defeated Lawler (pictured), there was a fighting chance Kamala would pick up additional votes on his coat tails.
Though the door knocking was performed by unpaid enthusiasts like me, our labors were overseen by temps the party hired at rates advertised from $15 an hour on a recruitment site.
I counted nine or ten of them lounging around the office.
The next surprise was to find that I would be using a supposedly state-of-the-art phone app called, incongruously, miniVan.
It would pull up addresses as I went from house-to-house, I was told. And it would synch the outcome of each approach in split seconds with the Democratic campaign’s computers.
Advantage Mondaire and Kamala!
Yet the only names on the list were registered Democrat and – in what had been described as the tightest race in recent history (until the results came through, of course), we were to talk to no one else.
‘The app lists the registered Democrats in the district. We’re only approaching Democrats,’ a temp explained.
Incredulous, I called Mitch Saunders, the party’s Northern Westchester County organizer, for some guidance.
‘The idea is to get Democrats to turn out,’ he confirmed. ‘It’s all about turn out.’
How about people like the neighbors near my home in Westchester who strung a gaudy Trump banner in the trees?
‘No,’ said Mitch.
What about the throngs of well-to-do female shoppers outside the campaign base – the very demographic that the Democrats were supposedly shooting for?
‘No.’
I said I’d like a Kamala-Mondaire yard sign for my verge at home. The Mount Kisco office had run out of them. ‘You don’t need them,’ yawned an unshaven youth. ‘Just use the app.’
But the app failed to synch when I hit the streets on November 5.
A few doors were answered by puzzled Democrats who’d already cast their ballots and were fed up with being ‘harassed’ – as they put it – by the non-stop texts and calls pestering them for money.
While the Republicans were stressing authenticity, we were confined to a verbatim script.
‘Hi! I’m a volunteer with the NY Dems. I just want to confirm that we can count on you to vote for Mondaire Jones…’
The script was constantly rejigged. By Election Day its most notable feature was that had nothing to say about Mondaire Jones other than his name.
From time to time, I got to treat my victims to the spiel.
Not that there was space to record their replies, just eight boxes to tick, from ‘strong support’ to ‘strong against’.
So much for listening to the voters.
If loyalists replied that they were planning to vote for Mondaire Jones and Harris, I read out a lengthy paragraph triumphantly announcing that: ‘we’re expecting a REALLY close election with VERY high voter turnout….’
Correct on one point, at least.
I’d been assigned to a campaign office in the attractive commuter village of Mount Kisco (pictured), one of three the Democrats had opened in the district. But it was a disappointing start.
This was supposedly a battle for democracy itself, yet 11th-hour conversion attempts were outlawed.
If someone told me they didn’t support Mondaire or Kamala or that they didn’t plan to vote, I was to back off immediately, and politely say, ‘No worries, have a great day!’
The atmosphere at the Mount Kisco office was celebratory right until the end. Soft drinks and snacks sat piled on a table on election night.
The friendly student overseeing the operation took an early cut, explaining that she was ‘flying back home to Canada in the morning.’
Canada. I was not surprised.
Before her plane had taken off, news broke that Lawler was beating Mondaire by a margin similar to Donald Trump’s defeat of Kamala.
‘What an absolute ass-kicking,’ Lawler crowed in a victory speech. It was hard to disagree.
In the last two weeks I had spoken to no Republicans. No independents. But I have to hand it to the Democrats: they are not for giving up!
My phone buzzed Thursday night with a text from San Francisco, where Nancy Pelosi had bucked the odds and won a landmark 20th term.
‘Rush in a contribution!’ it demanded.
‘Nancy Pelosi is working incredibly hard to help Democrats hold Trump and Republicans accountable — and ensure they can NEVER hold full power again.’