Calling High-Potential Turnout Women in Battleground States and Our Pathway to Victory
Since July 21, the National Women’s Law Center Action Fund has been collaborating with our incredible partners at Community Change Action on an exciting call program across 13 of the most pivotal battleground states, with our National Women’s Law Center Action Fund efforts laser-focused on high-potential women voters in our top three: Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin.
Why these states?
The fight for gender justice is everywhere, as we know, but this moment, we’re prioritizing these states for a few reasons:
- They’re presidential and Senate battlegrounds, key to both a Democratic trifecta and to sending Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to the White House.
- They’re home to excellent on-the-ground partner organizations. By working hand in hand with these grassroots groups, we’re ready to win real electoral victories now and build long-term power for gender justice.
- Turnout margins of gender justice voters is likely to be decisive. These are states where we know high-potential turnout women—a group of voters who overwhelmingly share core values around things like care, reproductive freedom, and safe schools, but who often face systemic barriers at the polls—are poised to make a difference in the outcome of the election.
Over the past two months, this call program has already contacted over half a million women voters in these three battlegrounds alone—talking with them about supporting Kamala Harris for president and Senate candidates Elissa Slotkin (MI), Jacky Rosen (NV), and Tammy Baldwin (WI), connecting with them about core issues around reproductive freedom, affordable housing, and access to child care, and identifying gaps—from undecided voters, to those who say they may not vote, to those who know about the presidential race but not the Senate—so that we, and our grassroots partners on the ground can maximize the impact of door-to-door follow-up and ongoing organizing in these pivotal final six weeks before November 5.
All of this is designed to make sure that we’re building the most impactful get-out-the-vote operation possible.
Highlights:
In our three priority target states alone, this joint phones program has already:
- Connected with over half a million women voters: 586,008 women in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Nevada.
- We’ve identified 331,197 new strong Kamala Harris supporters—particularly with the high-potential or “low-propensity” women, who overwhelmingly support gender justice values but may face more systemic barriers at the polls. These are the voters whose turnout margins have proven pivotal for multiple cycles now and who are poised to make an outcome-determining difference in 2024.
- Delivered for 18 grassroots on-the-ground partner voter contact operations—powering door-to-door canvasses, relational organizing, and outreach campaigns in each state, and enabling better targeting, prioritization, and persuasion in these crucial days and weeks before early voting.
State by State:
- Nevada: 135,125 women voters contacted, 65,797 new strong Kamala Harris supporters identified
- Wisconsin: 257,533 women voters contacted, 157,843 new strong Kamala Harris supporters identified
- Michigan: 193,350 women voters contacted, 107,557 new strong Kamala Harris supporters identified
Key Takeaways and Looking Ahead to the Final Six Weeks Before November 5:
- We’re heading in a positive direction: Throughout the summer, the trends were clear—the more these voters learn about Kamala Harris, her track record and plan around reproductive freedom, care, and housing and health care working people can afford, the more they support her.
- Turnout is going to be key, and we expect it to be high. If these trends hold, this will be a high turnout election. And when turnout is high, candidates running on gender justice win, from president to Senate to school board and state legislatures.
- But it’s going to be incredibly close. Though her support levels stayed relatively consistent across states, in recent weeks we’ve seen a slight uptick in percentages of “undecided” and “not voting” responses, especially in Nevada and Michigan, where outcomes could come down to a few thousand votes in a handful of counties.
- We know who we need to talk to, now. This pool of persuadable voters, especially those who share core values but are less likely to vote, must be urgently prioritized now, before early voting begins in full in these states. NWLC AF has set an ambitious goal of 100,000 more conversations with this essential but hard-to-reach electorate in the coming days. By layering phone calls with texts, digital ads, voter guide distribution, and partner outreach, we’re meeting these voters where they’re at and maximizing gender justice power at the ballot box.