Watch Out, Republicans

For years, Republicans have beaten strong Democratic candidates with their sophisticated system to turn out voters -- but things have changed.

Thanks to a joint effort by Blue State Digital, VAN, and the Democratic National Committee, Democrats won’t be playing catch-up with Republicans in 2008. Democrats now have a single voter file and revolutionary neighbor-to-neighbor voter contact system to find Democratic voters and get out the vote.

Blue State Digital Founding Partner Ben Self explained the new system to Politico.com:

"In the past two presidential cycles, the Republican national voter file allowed the party to more efficiently locate, communicate with and galvanize voters. Democrats, by comparison, relied on a disjointed compilation of national and state party data files that varied widely in quality. To boot, said one DNC analyst, many of their files would vanish after each election year."

For Democrats, Ben said, the shift to one "solid voter file" is "transformative."

"Whether it is microtargeting, regular targeting, neighbor-to-neighbor knocking on doors, or volunteers making calls," he said, "all these vital campaign activities are built on a national voter file and were not available in 2000."

• "DNC blunts GOP microtargeting lead," May 23, 2008, Politico.com