SWOP Blogger

On the heels of New Mexico’s June 1st Primary Election, Tomás Garduño, SWOP’s Director of Mass Base Political Organizing and Michael Montoya, SWOP’s Mass Base Political Organizer hopped on a plane to head out to Oakland, California to lend a hand in getting our communities out to vote for California’s Primary Election on Tuesday, June 8th. 

Oakland Rising (OR), a collaborative of 4 community organizations (APEN-Asian Pacific Environmental Network, EBASE-East Bay Alliance for an Sustainable Environment, Causa Justa/Just Cause, and the Ella Baker Center), hosted SWOP. Esperanza Tervalon-Daumont, OR’s Executive Director and Jessamyn Sabbag , OR’s Field Director exposed SWOP’s reps to their model, their GOTV field strategy and most importantly to “the Town” as Oaklanders call it. 

All day Friday was spent cutting turf and prepping the California Alliance’s field packets for the Saturday Door Knock Day. SWOP learned about how Oakland Rising coordinates with the broader California Alliance, how voters are targeted and how local organizations engage in the process. Particularly, how local campaigns are uplifted through the broad-based civic engagement campaign’s use of a “local question”. Something SWOP will be incorporating into it’s broad-based campaigns from now on. SWOP reps weren’t just there to build relationships and discuss strategy. Tomas and Michael were there to pound the pavement! All day Saturday was spent contacting voters. The morning was spent using the California Alliance’s predictive dialer system with the “daily team”, the Oakland Rising’s paid canvassers. After the phones, we hit the doors for the rest of the morning and early afternoon reminding Oaklanders to make their voice heard and power felt by getting out and voting!