One Pennsylvania and Other MVP Partners Hold Joint Canvass Launch for Harris-Walz

On August 30, One Pennsylvania gathered with Pennsylvania Working Families Party, Make the Road Action Pennsylvania, CASA In Action, and other local organizing groups for a joint launch of their door-to-door canvassing program for Harris-Walz, mobilizing Black voters and other marginalized voters to cast their ballots for Democrats and progressives up and down the ballot this fall.

Watch this 1-minute video to experience the palpable energy of the canvass launch event.

Here is a rough transcript of the brief remarks from Steve Paul, Executive Director of One PA. Notice how he contextualizes this electoral canvassing campaign as a part of a much larger movement for liberation and social change, and as a part of the rich tradition of civil rights, racial justice, and democracy that extends back through generations.

First I want to just say: Thank you to each and every one of you who is out here today.

Your presence and your energy — I can’t say enough about what it means for the movement.

The fact that you are out here, canvassing, knocking on doors, doing electoral work in this moment in history, is so significant.

Just like the people before us in the ‘40s, the ‘50s, the ‘60s, the folks that registered Black folks to vote when that s–t could get you killed. The folks that actually showed up to the polls when they had the Ku Klux Klan threatening their families. The folks that boycotted, that did sit-ins. Those are the traditions that we are continuing today, and you are doing that same work. And so I want to thank you.

This is not about the person; it’s about the people. Candidate campaigns and political parties can say this and even mean it, but local voter organizations demonstrate this in their actions, with authority and authenticity.

One PA’s Plan: Mobilize the Margin of Victory

Ultimately, elections come down to numbers, and One PA has done the math.

Check out this recent email we received from Steve:

I’m going to come right out and say it: One PA will be the margin of victory in Pennsylvania’s 2024 elections.

Now, I know that’s a big claim. But we have the plan and the record to back it up. 

Let’s start with the plan. In organizing, there’s something we call a “Theory of Change.” It’s essentially the north star or the “how” we do what we do.

We engage marginalized communities through door-to-door canvassing, phone calls, relational organizing, text messaging, digital ads, and earned media. We’ve built trust in communities across the Commonwealth because we’ve spent real time with people — working hand in hand to make Pennsylvania — and this country — better.

Whether we’re working to elect progressive champions to City Hall or fighting racist slumlords, our “how” remains the same. And here’s our team’s plan for the 2024 election:

• We will make nearly 4.5 million voter contacts before Election Day.
• That’s more than 1.5 million phone calls, nearly 700,000 doors knocked, 2 million texts, and facilitate tens of thousands peer-to-peer organizing conversations.
• We’ll register 35,000 voters.
• We’ll engage 300,000 Black voters in organizing conversations.
• We’ll recruit 150 voter guardians, and training them to lead democracy protection and volunteer engagement work in their neighborhoods.

I’m a firm believer that small victories create the possibility for larger ones. Winning leads to more winning, and we plan to stay winning in November in the most important election of our lifetimes.