When people come knocking at the front door to talk about politics, most visits go unanswered.
That’s what some members of a group of nearly 40 volunteers from the Oak Park area along with 26 students from the University of Chicago encountered last weekend after making the 180-mile trek to Battle Creek, Michigan, to stump for Kamala Harris and other Democratic candidates.
Among the volunteers from Oak Park were retired banker Gordon Hellwig and Rhoda Bernstein, who canvassed a neighborhood of relatively small, siding-clad houses, many of which had seen better days.
They knocked on 52 doors but people answered only eight times. When no one came to the door the volunteers would leave campaign literature and then move on to the next house. When someone did answer, many were not anxious to talk about the election. A few said that they had no interest in voting.
But that didn’t daunt the volunteers.
“I think this is the most important election in my lifetime,” Hellwig said. “That’s why I’m doing it now. I think it’s vitally important for people to be aware of the issues and to go vote. I think the contrast between the candidates is so stark that I just think it’s really important for me to be volunteering and doing as much as I can.”
Canvassing and talking to voters is nothing new for Hellwig, who also served a foreign service officer for 10 years. While a student at Iowa’s Cornell College Hellwig knocked doors in Cedar Rapids for Jimmy Carter in 1976. He also canvassed extensively for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.
Saturday’s trip to Battle Creek was Hellwig’s fifth canvassing trip this year. He canvassed three times in Kenosha, Wisconsin and once in Niles, Michigan.
The volunteers were marshaled by Operation Swing State, a coalition of Chicago area Democratic groups led by Patrick Hanley, the president of the New Trier Democrats and former field organizer for Obama, and Ben Head, the political director for U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-9th).
“We’re a partnership based organization,” Hanley said. “We’re a coalition of partners and the partners are across the north side, north suburbs, Lake County, all the way down to Hazel Crest, south suburbs, and some western suburbs as well.”
The volunteers from Oak Park met at 8:30 a.m. Saturday at the headquarters of the Democratic Party of Oak Park on North Avenue. There they were given $25 prepaid Visa cards to cover the cost of lunch and perhaps dinner and grouped up in cars to make the nearly three hour drive to Battle Creek. Drivers were also given a $25 prepaid Visa card to help defray the cost of gas.
They arrived at the Democratic headquarters in downtown Battle Creek around 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time. There they were given their assignments, a route that is downloaded to a canvassing smart phone app. They also heard a pep talk from Michigan State Assembly member Jim Haadsma, a Battle Creek Democrat who is in a tough reelection campaign. Haadsma thanked the volunteers for coming to Battle Creek and told them that the outcome of his race could determine whether Democrats maintain their narrow majority in the State Assembly.
“It’s making me very charged,” Haadsma said of the influx of volunteers from the Chicago area. “I know now that I have friends like this who I’ve never met.”
On their rounds, Hellwig and Bernstein, who also previously canvassed for Obama, identified 14 Harris supporters, a number that includes some people in a house that other family members vouched for a couple of people they ran into on the street. They only talked to one person who said he was for Republican nominee Donald Trump.
“This trip has been the most encouraging so far,” Hellwig said of the five canvassing trips he has made this year.
Some of the University of Chicago students, who traveled to Battle Creek on a bus paid for by Operation Swing State also had a difficult time finding people who wanted to talk about the election.
“A lot of people that we talked to today aren’t even planning on voting so if we can even just get a couple people more to the polls, … then I think we’re making a lot of difference,” said Sklyer Nunn a first year graduate student at the University of Chicago who is pursuing master’s degrees in both public policy and international relations. “Some people have been really receptive and open to having conversation, other people — we’ve gotten some doors in the face. That’s OK too. I’m sure they’re getting bothered a lot and we understand that.”
Nunn was canvassing with another first year public policy graduate student, Timothee Lefebvre, who is from Belgium. This was Lefebvre’s introduction to American politics.
“It’s pretty interesting,” Lefebvre said. “I’m also discovering more normal people than the people I’m meeting at the University of Chicago, which is more privileged. It’s really different than Chicago.”
As the canvassers were knocking on doors in Battle Creek, Harris landed at the Battle Creek Executive Airport on her way to a rally with former first lady Michelle Obama in Kalamazoo, some 23 miles away.
But Hellwig and Berstein weren’t too disappointed about missing out on a chance to see the candidate they were knocking on doors to help.
“I think we’re doing good work out here,” Hellwig said. “I’d like to see her but there are plenty of people to fill up that stadium.”
Hanley, of Operation Swing State, said canvassers typically talk to people at less than 20% of the homes they visit, but he hoped sheer numbers can make a difference in what are expected to be very close races in Wisconsin and Michigan. Last weekend alone Operation Swing State sent 1,450 volunteers to Michigan and Wisconsin and since June volunteers have knocked on about 150,000 doors in those states..
Hanley believes that old fashioned face to face contact can still make a difference.
“To have somebody show up at a door, knock on the door, show them the respect of being on their doorstep and the conviction of driving up from Chicago, I think it does make a difference and I think it reframes the election in the minds of folks who might have stayed home otherwise,” he said.
“The choices that Illinois volunteers make and the actions Illinois volunteers take in Wisconsin and in Michigan may well swing this election.”
Bob Skolnik is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
