Deep canvassing is a form of
canvassing
Canvassing is the systematic initiation of direct contact with individuals, commonly used during political campaigns. Canvassing can be done for many reasons: political campaigning, grassroots fundraising, community awareness, membership driv ...
that uses long
empathic
Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another's position. Definitions of empathy encompass a broad range of social, cog ...
conversations to help shift someone's beliefs.
Origins
The idea originated in 2012, at the
Los Angeles LGBT Center
The Los Angeles LGBT Center (previously known as the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center) is a provider of programs and services for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. The organization's work spans four categories, including health, soc ...
when staffers decided to talk to people who voted against same sex marriage to understand them better.
After the tactic was used in a pro-marriage-equality campaign in Minnesota, Steve Deline, Ella Barrett, and David Fleischer enlisted professors
David Broockman
David Broockman is an American political science, political scientist. He is an associate professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He is best known for his research on political persuasion and reducing prejudice to ...
and Josh Kalla to study the efficacy of the tactic.
With the support of
People's Action
People's Action is a national progressive advocacy and political organization in the United States made up of 40 organizations in 30 states. The group's stated goal is to "build the power of poor and working people, in rural, suburban, and urban ...
, deep canvassing was used to engage with voters for the US 2020 presidential election.
Effectiveness
In 2014, a paper by Michael J. LaCour,
When contact changes minds
"When contact changes minds: An experiment on transmission of support for gay equality" is a fraudulent article by then-UCLA political science graduate student Michael LaCour and Columbia University political science professor Donald Green. The ar ...
, was released showing that canvassing conversation can change minds
but was retracted the following year for having falsified data.
Kalla and Broockman's study, published in 2016, found that ten minute conversations did have an impact on residents’ views of transgender issues.
In 2017, Kalla and Broockman published another study that found brief door-to-door canvassing, had nearly zero effect on voting choices. Of their six studies, Kalla and Brookman have found that deep canvassing does have measurable effects.
It has been shown to be effective in person and over the phone.
In 201
Changing the Conversation Togetherwas launched as an organization of concerned citizens building a national corps of deep canvassers. This volunteer based and professionally led organization helped flip Staten Island in 2018 and Pennsylvania in 2020.
See also
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Political campaigning
A political campaign is an organized effort which seeks to influence the decision making progress within a specific group. In democracies, political campaigns often refer to electoral campaigns, by which representatives are chosen or referend ...
References
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Election campaigning