First Week

My first week with the campaign was fairly informative but was mostly limited to calling voters. In 2008, Barack Obama was able to beat Hillary Clinton because he used a popular campaigning method known as "PhoneBanking". Sanders has been utilizing the same technique as he reaches out to more and more voters and attempts to sway them. 

What is Phonebanking? Basically, as a phonebanker my job is to talk to any possible voters through the phone (as the name suggests). The voters name, phone number and other information are found through the "Virtual Phone Bank" (VPB). I simply sign in to my account and type in the group code that the campaign gives to me. Based on the campaigns priorities I will call different groups, but each group code consists of groups of individuals with similar characteristics. 

My first time phone-banking was to convince Bernie supporters (in Arizona) to become democrats. This is important because Arizona is a closed primary meaning that only voters who are registered as Democrats can vote. Although we (Volunteers for Sanders) are allowed to speak about Senator Sanders positive qualities and why we believe the voter should ultimately choose him we are not allowed to mention any other candidates and are under strict orders to say nothing negative about another candidate. 

After the win in New Hampshire there was a surge in phone banking and voter registration for Bernie around the nation, presumably because people are starting to believe that he can contend with frontrunner Hillary Clinton. The Arizona campaign office has stuck to very traditional campaign methods (calling voters and speaking to them in person), but as we approach the Arizona primary the campaign will find new ways to increase voter turnout and get a much needed win for Senator Sanders.

Thanks for reading!