I spent the 2 weekends before the 2024 election canvassing in Reno, NV and Tulare, CA. For the Harris campaign and Rudy Salas (Democrat candidate for CA-22) respectively. Obviously the election results did not go how I wanted, and that’s a lot to process. Nonetheless, the experience of canvassing was very rewarding and I don’t regret my efforts at all.

I think stretching outside your comfort limits and doing something new and uncomfortable can bring some personal growth. Being more introverted, it wasn’t my definition of comfortable to go solo on a weekend trip to another state to talk to strangers. Despite this, it was a positive experience that truly made me feel better about politics. I feel very strongly about politics, and it felt good to actually get out there and do something even if it was insignificantly small.

These were organized bus trips with 4-5 hour drives to each area. It definitely felt good to meet new people who are similarly politically engaged. The energy is great and it definitely takes a certain type of person to spend your weekend doing this. Especially living in the Bay Area and with most of my friend circles being people in tech, it was pretty refreshing to see the diversity in background of those volunteering.

Logistically, I surprised by the quality of the tech in some aspects of canvassing (the canvassing apps). But also surprised by the lack of tech in some aspects like assigning turf, rides, hotel rooms, and keeping track of folks to make sure they make it back in time. A lot of the on the ground organization seemed to be done with a menagerie of Google Sheets and post-it notes. Not an attack on the organizers at all, there’s a lot of hard-working volunteers making it all happen. But I just thought the process was interesting from a technology perspective. The canvassing apps provide all the tooling when you’re on the ground, but everything outside of that is mostly manual processes.

The canvassing apps MiniVan and PDI Connect (only used in CA apparently) were pretty decent. They each give you very specific houses and voters to try and contact for your shift. MiniVan uses Apple Maps and I found had much better consistency of finding specifically where houses were. PDI Connect uses OpenStreetMap and the locations were much less accurate. They both drain your battery quite quickly by using GPS constantly, so I definitely recommend a battery pack for canvassing.

As for the actual door knocking, it was pretty fun overall. You spend most of your time navigating the neighborhood to find the right doors to knock. You get a very specific on-the-ground feeling of the neighborhood you’re in that you just wouldn’t experience otherwise. Honestly, most people either aren’t home or don’t answer their door. The vast majority of people I talked to were quite nice. I talked to some very sweet people. Some people are uninterested and want to get back to their day (understandable!), but I hoped I was another data point to sway them to turn out. I really only had one negative experience the whole weekend.

The first few doors are kind of nerve wracking, but you start to get used to it after a couple. I equate it to jumping into the cold pool head first. You have to lower your inhibitions and realize the stakes are really low (no fear). Canvassing is a skill, I’m sure I would get better at it with more practice as well. I think you get better at engaging and having better conversations, it is a challenge to break through especially when the audience is uninterested. At this point in the campaign it is mostly a GOTV operation and I didn’t really have an opportunity talk substantive policy. But talking with actual voters helps you realize the common decency that is missed online.

There is a lot to be pessimistic about with regards to the election results. It can be tempting to believe that the ground game did not matter. But the reality of it is Harris performed much better in swing states than non swing states. The campaign operation and ground game did make a difference. And it mostly likely did actually matter, with Democrats holding on to senate seats in NV, AZ, MI, and WI.

It’s currently 712 days until the 2026 midterms. I hope to do whatever I can to most effectively volunteer in that election. And if it’s more canvassing, I’m well prepared!