A good ground game wins football games and it wins elections, too.
In the political sense, the ground game is the old-fashioned campaigning of hitting the pavement, knocking on doors, getting out to public events, doing interviews, attending all-candidates forums and working the phones.
Even in the online age, social media and web presence can only carry a candidate so far. The candidates are campaigning for a job and the best way to beat the competition to get a job is to hit the pavement and get yourself out there.
If there's one clear message for local NDP and Liberal candidates and supporters to take away from the results of an opinion poll conducted last week by Oraclepoll Research for The Citizen and CKPG News, it's that the ground game will decide Prince George-Mackenzie and Prince George-Valemount.
Among decided voters, the Liberals lead in both ridings by razon-thin margins. Shirley Bond is in front of Sherry Ogasawara by just five points in Prince George-Valemount and Mike Morris leads Bobby Deepak by seven points in Prince George-Mackenzie. The margin of error in the poll of 300 residents in each riding is 5.5 per cent, 19 times out of 20.
But the most important number to come out of the polls is that 19 per cent of voters, the identical number in both ridings, are undecided.
While four out of five voters have already made up their mind, there is still that 19 per cent that has not decided how they will cast their ballot on May 14. For both the Liberals and the NDP, the winner of the two Prince George ridings will be the candidate who scoops up the most votes from the undecided camp.
While the ground game may be a pretty low-tech way to attract voters, that doesn't mean it's unsophisticated. All major political parties today use sophisticated software to analyze demographic data, gauging where the votes are in each riding, down to individual streets in specific neighbourhoods. Party volunteers working the phones generate new data each night, helping the candidates and their campaign managers choose which areas to spend more or less time in and what the best message is when engaging voters in these areas.
A secondary outcome from our polling shows that even the election date itself has political ramifications. A May election date favours the Liberals because college and university students have scattered to the four winds. A fall, winter or early spring election date would favour the NDP because household income points to political preference. The more income a local household brings in each year, the more likely it is to vote Liberal. Students aren't particularly well off so they normally lean left on the political spectrum. They can also be mobilized through energetic Rock The Vote and other youth engagement campaigns. Barack Obama made the November presidential election dates work well for him in 2008 and again last year, convincing students their votes mattered and getting them out to the ballot box.
The May 14 election date, however, helps the ground game of all the candidates. Across the province, even in Prince George and points north, the arrival of spring brings people outdoors and makes homeowners more interested in standing in their doorways for a chat with political volunteers and the candidates. That's good for both candidates and voters. A well-delivered pitch by an eloquent volunteer or some thoughtful listening and understanding from a candidate is more than enough to convince an undecided voter that either the candidate and/or the party understands them and supports their goals.
Winning those doorstep battles, one voter and one household at a time, is the classical political ground game and that's how Prince George and area will be won in 2013.
