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DFA Campaign Academy Success Stories

The DFA Campaign Academy gets results!  Here are some of our favorite success stories from the past several years.  Got a story you'd like to share?  Click here to submit your story today!

An Uphill Race by Elesha Gayman

I had an uphill race in a part of Iowa that even the state Party didn’t target. I sought training with a couple different groups, but it was the DFA Training Academy that really taught me the nuts and bolts of running a serious campaign. The DFA training taught my campaign how to analyze voter data, how to establish real-world goals and benchmarks, and how to talk to voters, volunteers, and the media. Campaigning is a skill, and it’s something that every progressive activist should know. I’m certain we wouldn’t have been able to win without the support and training of DFA.”

An Upset in Rutland by Ben Walsh

These past few months have been amazing.  Back in July I got a call from a friend I made at the DFA training I attended telling me about an opening for the campaign manager position on a state senate race. It was a solidly Republican seat with an 5-term entrenched incumbent. It would be a challenge for anyone, and a position I wasn’t sure I was able to take on. I was supposed to graduate from college this December, so I wasn't so sure about this rather drastic change of plans. 

I hemmed and I hawed and I did the interview and a week and a half later I was in Rutland, VT managing Bill Carris' campaign.  There was a lot of on the job learning involved, and I was working with an incredible candidate and an incredible Vermont Democratic Party field staff.  But what made the difference, for me anyway, was the skills I got at the DFA training earlier in the year.  From developing a campaign message to drafting our campaign field plan to coordinating our letter to the editor campaign, the skills we learned at the training were the basis for much of what we did on the campaign.

The results?  In what was supposed to be a Republican stronghold in our little blue state Bill, my candidate, beat a solidly entrenched conservative Republican by a larger margin than any GOP candidate had won by in the past ten years!  I can’t emphasize enough the importance of getting more activists, like me, the skills they need to make their hard work go as far as possible.

Shipplett for Judge by Norm Winick

Planning Ahead by Ruth Harvey

The information I learned in the training was immensely helpful as I analyzed the voters in my division. I'm a new Committeewoman in a rather conservative district. There is a lot of organizing to do here, and learning how to prioritize my time with a spread out (geographically) area, and voters with very diverse interests, was extremely important. Figuring out how to get out the vote most effectively (taught by you) was great; I followed your model closely. I got to know lots of my voters, including those who were unregistered and had questions about what they needed when they went. Also you told me about lists of SuperVoters which I got ahold of, giving me voting info AND phone numbers. I called every (dem) voter who had not come out by 5:30pm! We got a much larger number of voters out this time, and Santorum lost by 2 to l.  It was amazing. And I intend to work hard for the two years BEFORE the next election this time, with coffees and get togethers for socializing, discussions and films.

Thanks so much for the field map on how to proceed. I want more.

Making a Difference by Fran Moon

I tried to get involved in the campaigns before and was left feeling intimidated and discouraged.  I found myself surrounded by articulate bright  young people which was great to see, but felt I had nothing to offer. The campaign people seemed too busy to assign jobs, let alone provide training so it seemed like I was more in the way than able to provide any useful function.  In 2002 my husband and I agreed to make phone calls to Florida voters although we both heartily dislike telephones.  It was a terrible experience; we were given out of date telephone lists and kept getting people who said the contact had moved or died several years before.  I concluded that the only thing I had to offer was getting out the credit card or writing a check.

This year I decided I to give it one last chance- the country was in such a god-awful mess I would force myself to do everything I could before giving up on the whole system.  I went down to the Jerry McNerney campaign headquarters and signed up to do precinct walking.  And what a change.  The volunteers were given a good training session before going out.   At first it was really intimidating going door to door, but the training was great, and the enthusiasm contagious.  I was told what to expect and the voter lists were up to date and accurate.  The Russ Feingold campaign had sent somebody whose main job seemed to be taking care of the volunteers-  giving us a friendly greeting (sometimes desperately needed after running into several negative voters),  and always finding useful things for us to do. And I began to see that I was making a difference.  Many people who hadn't heard of Jerry McNerney or hadn't made up their minds seemed ready to support him after we talked.  My most effective contacts were older Republicans who were sick of the corruption but weren't quite ready to vote for a Democrat.  I think I had some influence there because I'm a 59 year old average middle-class lady.  I thank god for those all those smart young people passionately campaigning, but I have realized there is a place for less articulate older folks too.

The incredible victory felt even sweeter because I felt that I was a part of a magnificent team that succeeded in bringing about desperately needed change for our country.

Chris Kelley for Judge by Paul Molloy

I drew a great deal of guidance and inspiration from the DFA Night School Training courses. I couldn't have done my part in getting Chris elected were it not for the invaluable advice and instruction provided by all those involved in organizing those indispensable Night School sessions.

DFA's mission is relevant, necessary and gets results. Period. My thanks to you, Governor Dean and the entire DFA team for reviving the Democratic Party and for providing the tools for committed citizens to get involved and make a positive difference in their communities.

With much gratitude,

Paul Molloy

Isabel for City Council by Isabel Piedmont 

I think the most important thing I took away from the DFA training is the 5 C's of a good message: It must be clear, concise, consistent, convincing, and contrastive. I think the fact that I kept coming back to my three campaign priorities in a consistent and clear way made a good impression on voters. I must admit, though, that my opponent was pretty consistent too, but she lacked the "convincing" message. All 5 of the C's are important because voters really do have a short attention span, so you gotta get 'em hooked quickly.

Best,

Isabel

Isabel Piedmont
City Council, District 5
Bloomington, Indiana

Louisiana Turning by David Wilburn

Due in large part to the awesome training and encouragement of DFA, I am now a regional organizer in the DNC/State Party partnership.

Democracy for SWLA had a key role in the 2007 elections, all through the campaigns you could see our tattered training manual passed around with a reverence usually reserved for scripture down here. Midway through the campaign season I took the position with the party and it was trained DFA members that provided the help I needed to hit the ground running. We have DFA alumni running for state party positions many are unopposed.

How we won when no one thought we would by Kevin Caridad 

I was the Butler County Organizer for Jason Altmire the Democratic candidate for PA's 4th CD. Jason challenged Republican Melissa Hart who was a three term incumbent and was believed to have a bullet proof seat. However, Election Day disproved that reality. I went to DFA training back in the early spring in Columbus, OH where I learned all aspects of running a campaign. I was volunteered to head Butler efforts because no one had great expectations of Butler due to the heavy Republican registration. The expectation was 32% of the vote. I used my new learned DFA skills for fundraising, grassroots organizing, and for a strong GOTV effort. By the time election Day came I had raised over 10 thousand dollars, had amassed over 80 volunteers, and was the GOTV captain for the democratic congressional, senatorial, and governors race in Butlers 4th CD. By the end of the night we had swept Republican Congresswomen Hart and Senator Santorum out of office while retaining the governorship.  GO DFA! 

Thanks to DFA: we won locally! by Thomas De Luca

I needed to tell you that thanks to you and your team, my candidate won
her election.

Samantha Steele is the first Democrat to be County Assessor (Tippecanoe
County, Indiana) in over thirty years. The Republicans fight hard to
keep their County seats here. In fact, Samantha is the only Democratic
challenger that won this election (unfortunately).

Your Warrenville, IL training did this for us. Thank you. I'll never
forget it.

An Encouraging Word  by A.J. Willmore

DFA Night School gave me the optimism and skills to work making calls for DFA and (later at night, into the SW and West coast from FL) MoveOn.  At the local level, I became reacquainted with another cross-cultural (MoveOn and traditional Democratic precinct working) Dem at Dem headquarters, who I met when we delivered a MoveOn petition to pressure our local Repug Rep to fire Tom DeLay.  

An especially encouraging takeaway message from DFA Night School helped me in the 2006 campaign: No matter how discouraging call after call could be, I knew if I called for an hour and changed just one voter's mind, and I multiplied that by thousands of upbeat progressive phone bankers also changing just one voter's mind in that hour, that’s thousands of votes for progressives.  Some elections were won or lost by fewer than 100 votes.  And not only was I encouraged, but working in the local Dem headquarters, making GOTV calls locally, I could share that encouraging message with GOTVers who may have been discouraged talking to local likely voters.

After the election, I was delighted to read an article about Red states going Blue, including New Mexico and Nevada.  Those were the two states I called into for MoveOn GOTV at night when I had some time, when it was too late to call locally.

Persistence in Walking Precincts on Election Day by Frances Cleveland

After doing a lot of MoveOn calls and acting as Precinct Captain for my mostly democratic area, I decided that on Election Day I wanted to directly help get out the vote on a "critical" voting district. So I signed up to walk precincts for McNerney against Pombo. I went around with my walk list of likely McNerney voters, door hangers with polling location, and a friendly smile. 

The highlight of the day for me personally was when I knocked at one door, and a very grumpy older man asked me why I was bothering him - he was in the middle of cooking and didn't want the food to burn. I explained that I was there to urge him to vote. He snarled back that he couldn't vote. On gently questioning why (he was one my walk list as a voter), he irritatedly stated he hadn't gotten the right paper work sent to him. He had even asked for an absentee ballot but it had never arrived. But he wanted to get those damned Republicans out of there because they were destroying the country. I said that I would check with the poll workers. I did that, and found that indeed he was able to vote there. I went back and greeted him with "I've got great news for you! You can indeed vote!" He broke into a huge grin and said "That's just terrific!! I don't mind if my food burns! Where do I go? Now I can help beat those bastards!"

Win Early, Win Often  by Mark Harmon

I ran for Knox County (Tennessee) Commissioner throughout the spring and summer of 2006.  The Election Day was August 3rd.  I won with a little more than 54% of the vote, the only local candidate that day in our county to upset an incumbent.   Democracy for America and Democracy for Tennessee trainings were very helpful.  My campaign manager, Paul Witt, leads Democracy for Knoxville--and he was exceptionally good about strategy.    The keys were:    Door-to-door.  I walked nearly the entire district, using good lists of likely voters.  I stressed those who leaned Republican.  If I could persuade them to vote for me that was a "two," one for me, one less for my opponent.  I also went to many neighborhood association meetings, and had good direct mail.  My issues were schools (more support needed), sprawl (too much), and sheriff (held accountable).  To that I could add term limits because my opponent joined a lawsuit to nullify the county charter so he and several others could avoid term limits.  I ran a subtle message that my opponent had done some good in eight years, but had let us down by that act--and it was time for a fresh approach to these matters.

Grass Roots Campaigns Work  by Fran Ryan

Years ago, our neighborhood precinct wanted to usurp a village board and president, who were corruptly run by an adjacent village, comprised of a majority of Republicans.

We did telephone chains and home meetings to inform our fellow residents, and precinct co-captains walked the precinct to talk to people. In short, on Election Day that year, we threw the bums out--all of them--and our village was also a majority of Republicans.  Our precinct was first in voting numbers.  Sound like a familiar process?  It was inspiring!

Though I have voted in every election, I was never that angry or involved again until 2000, 2004 and 2006.  Obviously, we lost in the first two elections.  In this last one, I got really involved in lots of small ways.  I contributed what I could afford to DNC, DFA, Common Cause, Truth Out, Barbara Boxer's PAC and a couple of other PACs to see if I could influence what was happening nationally.  

I took a couple of DFA "night school" computer/telephone classes. I loved DFA's "grass roots" approach because I knew it could work.  I walked neighborhoods with and without candidates.  We also showed one of the films in our own precinct, and had the largest turnout of any of our precinct meetings.  Our precinct captain and just a few neighbors had been involved.  We were discouraged by what seemed like a lack of interest by many people, and we didn't realize we were actually getting peoples' attention.