Political

Canvassing: what’s it for and what’s it like?

Find out about why people go canvassing and what happens when you knock on someone’s door in my latest election briefing video:

Canvassing can bring all sorts of benefits, which is backed up by academic research and by the Labour Party’s experience. More canvassing goes with winning more votes.

To make that vote winning easier, the Liberal Democrats also have a special app for canvassing and I’ve put together this special crib sheet for new canvassers.

One thing I forgot to mention in the video, however, is the case of the parrots.

Watch the previous election briefing videos

Here’s why targeting is important:

Here’s why the Liberal Democrats deliver so many leaflets:

2 responses to “Canvassing: what’s it for and what’s it like?”

  1. How do we make on the doorstep:
    (1) emotive, alluring messages (here in Haringey, local Labour do it very well with “help us save the NHS”, “help us make the government work for the ordinary people”, “help us make our transport serve the commuters, not shareholders”, “help us defeat the conglomerate business exploitation of our country”… etc… – every single one of their messages falls on eager ears);
    (2) criticism of our opponents that works (we are never allowed to make negative comments, yet Labour here do it all the time and it seems to work for them)? Are we as the third party simply not allowed by the electorate to make negative comments or is it more that we as the party feel uncomfortable with being negative?
    Just telling people what we Lib Dems offer, I find, works with those already sympathetic to us, but wins no new supporters. To win here in Hornsey and Wood Green, we have to demolish the opposition first, then build the support for Lib Dems. The media are no longer doing the demolition work for us, post-coalition, so we have to find a way of doing it ourselves.

  2. I’ve been canvassing over four years now, since GE15, and I really think that before inviting people to become canvassers, the very word should be demystified. I would imagine that most people, like me pre-2015, thought that canvassing was trying to persuade others to vote for a particular party, LD in our case. If potential canvassers understood that it’s basically doorstep interviewing with a view to obtaining data, then we’d have many more volunteers.

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