No matter your role this cycle or the outcome of your race, the work you’re doing day-to-day can build power that lasts past Election Day. There’s a necessary sense of urgency in the finite time frame of a campaign, but we can’t let that urgency warp our perception of the impact we can have.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been lucky enough to knock on doors with both of my parents. Through this shared experience, I’ve gotten snippets of family history and lore, especially about my parents’ civic engagement. I’ve learned that my mom remembers voter contact conversations she had in 2008. To this day, a seemingly irrelevant conversation from 16 years ago has informed how she votes and how she discusses politics with her friends and our family.
No matter who you’re speaking with on the campaign trail, you have real potential to make a lasting impression. A single conversation can be a sacred memory of someone’s experience with a candidate, party, organization, or activity.
The impact of voter and volunteer experience doesn’t end on Election Day, and it also doesn’t end with the individual in front of you. People you engage with are most likely sharing the story of that experience with at least a couple of people in their lives, whether that was a canvassing shift that really empowered them or a conversation on a door that went negative. We have to remind ourselves to slow down and acknowledge the power of influence a single person can have on their wider community. The average voter isn’t going to be swayed by celebrity endorsements, they’re going to be influenced by the people they love and care for around them.
I encourage you to look inward and remember that you are an amplifier of our collective message. It sometimes can feel easier to compartmentalize campaign work from your own existence, especially when we are constantly fighting for our basic freedoms here in Missouri. We can’t work for collective liberation from an outward perspective.
There is no one coming to save Missouri. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the people, we have our own influence and power, and we can build that power into something magical with vision and intention.
Forget vote tripling, I want us to be vote-quadrupling and volunteer-quintupling. Connect your campaign involvement to your community, and think about people you love and care for who could be activated by their own self-interest to get involved. Model this relational recruitment with the volunteers and voters you engage with. Our power is minimized when we allow ourselves to only fill the role as the political spokesperson to our personal circle. Collectively, we are building the better Missouri that we and our loved ones deserve, and we need all hands on deck to both envision and fight for that future.
Ask your mama or an old friend to canvass with you, you may learn a thing or two.
Gracie
Director of Organizing and Strategic Initiatives
Gracie Fleming (she/they)