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Saturday, October 14, 2006 - 4:00pm GOP Ground Game Superior to Democrats In six of the seven competitive senate seats, the Democrats are leading their Republican challengers. However, in many of those races, the Republican candidate is within one or two percent. That could be close enough for the Republicans simply because their ground game in turning out the vote is far better than the left. We could be heading into election night thinking the Democrats will win, but could be shocked when the actual votes are counted.
There are a number of reasons the Republicans are better at getting the public to vote. For starters, they have a lot more money than the Democrats. This has allowed them to employ more people for canvassing, cold calling, etc. It also has allowed them to put high-tech touch screen balloting machines in areas that are heavily conservative. The Republicans also recognized this need a long time ago and now are experts at what is effective and what isn't.
The lack of state-of-the-art voting machines in major cities are a huge disadvantage to the Democrats. The cities are where the Democrats have their base of support, but many voting locations still have paper ballots. The problem with paper ballots is that a large percentage of them are never counted, thus hurting the Democrats. Electronic voting counts nearly all of the votes cast. Electronic voting should clearly have a paper trail to avoid corruption, but it is a better system.
The Democrats are more prepared than they were in the 2002 and 2004 elections, but it is still inferior to the conservatives. There are two Senate races that look to come right down to the wire. In Missouri and Tennessee, the polls show the candidates separated by no more than 1.4%.
The GOP has an intense, 72-hour get out the vote program that could be worth a couple percent and could mean the difference between them losing control of the Senate and holding onto it. If the Democrats want control, they better make sure they are comfortably ahead.
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