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Final 'get-out-the-vote' push
06/11/2006 22:49 - (SA)
Washington - Republican and Democratic campaigns ramped up their sophisticated get-out-the-vote operations on Monday - the last day before crucial midterm elections which will decide which party controls the US congress.
Democrats are well positioned to take back the house for the first time since 1994 in Tuesday's midterm vote, and also have a good shot of capturing the senate.
But with razor-thin margins separating candidates in several key election contests, both major parties were relying on well-honed mobilisation efforts to rally their base voters to the polls.
"It's all about turnout," said Republican representative Tom Reynolds, chair of his party's house election campaigns, speaking on US television on Sunday. Democrats need 15 seats
Democrats need a net gain of 15 seats out of the total 435 in play on Tuesday to control the house. They hope for a gain of six senate seats out of the 33 at stake to give them the edge in the 100-member upper chamber.
At stake is control of the US legislative agenda for the final two years of US President George W Bush's presidency.
Top Republicans who rallied party members on Monday were buoyed by recent polls that showed they had narrowed the gap in several national voter surveys.
"New polls say our party is heading into Election Day with strong momentum," said Republican national committee chair Ken Mehlman in a memo to the party faithful, adding that Republicans could be heartened by "major gains" made in opinion polls over the past day or so.
Mehlman said the gains were likely even more substantial than polling suggests, since the vaunted Republican get-out-the-vote machine operates largely under the radar.
He added that party boosters had succeeded in reaching millions of possible supporters over the weekend, with many more potential voters in their sights. Casting wide net
Political observers said the Republican Party's voter turnout effort is better at homing in on party-friendly independent voters and more efficient at casting a wide net to catch the greatest possible number of voters.
Republicans are determined to confound Democratic predictions of sweeping election gains with their better-funded voter turnout machine, which led Bush to re-election in 2004.
"There's a ground game out there that we know how to run," Republican house majority leader John Boehner told Fox News on Sunday.
"At the end of the day, it's going to make a big difference in a lot of these tight races."
Mehlman said outreach efforts in the final hours of campaigning succeeded in contacting three million voters on Saturday alone.
"By and large, this effort will have its impact on election day and will not show up in most public opinion polls," he said.
Meanwhile, Democrats have incorporated some of techniques that Republicans have used to good effect in the past, but also relied on tried-and-true recruitment and outreach methods used by labour union for decades.
Officials said the largest and most powerful US labour federation, the AFL-CIO, had rallied about 100 000 volunteers to make a planned five million phone calls in the last few days of the campaign.
A record $40m had been set aside expressly for the end-of-campaign push.
"Working people have had enough of disappearing jobs, unaffordable health care, stagnant wages, retirement insecurity, corrupt politicians and a congressional majority that rubber-stamps President Bush's anti-worker policies," the AFL-CIO statement said.
"On November 7, we can take back America for working families - if we vote."
- AFP
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