The problem is the lack of commitment on the county part. Travis county has gone full on the idea. They're written into the bylaws, the leads make up an executive advisory board to help the chair run the county between Cec meetings. The whole county has been mapped out and the structure relied on for the organization of the campaign and ground game https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1b1r30cKu_SNjoqwHoSTzS_b4xY2Zkok&usp=sharing
When I started I did the analysis and discovered Precinct chairs did matter - when the precinct chair treated the precinct as a constituency as opposed to a sinecure (a office that confers status without work). When I took over my precinct there was little push from the county party to hold precinct chairs to their work and allowed a lot of the chairs just to use it as a platform for other personal goals. My precinct was barely Democratic and now it is 80% so.
So what happened. Several things. The precinct chair before me did nothing in the precinct. In fact, I lived the precinct for decades, help form and create the neighborhood association and I didn't even realize we had a chair. I filed for the position because I thought it was vacant. At that point I started recruiting a team and working the precinct. We know and have knocked on every door. I know the data of every voter and organize good canvasing during elections.
While this is a good isolated case study, we need to spread this sort of work. To do this Travis county implemented super-precincts. A super precinct is a set of 8 to 25 local precincts that share common issues and demographics. It works as a mutual support organization that keeps regional interests together and helps form an easier layer of management. Instead of the Travis county party office having to manage 247 (now 308) precincts only has to manage 20 super precincts. The super precinct meets regularly, allow the precinct chairs to share wisdom and tactics. The super precinct knows the local area. When a precinct chair steps down, the super precinct know who to ask to step up. When a precinct chair is new, the super precinct is a natural mentoring team. When running an election, the super precinct knows how to augment and change talking points and targets in a way that better addresses the local population. And canvases are no longer precinct events, but super precinct events.
My precinct is a member of CAPTCHA (Central Austin PrecincTs CHAirs). In a way it is the oldest super precinct, having formed as a group before the implementation of super precincts county wide. Currently all of our precincts has chairs, all the precincts have filed candidates for the primary. It has be several years since CAPTCHA has had a chair that was vacant for more than a few months. 5 of our (14) chairs are new in the last 6 months and we're working to educating them and have them effective before August. In 2020 and 2022 we picked our own targets, cut our own turf and ran our own canvases (taking a load of the central office). The result, CAPTCHA had one of the highest turnouts and Democratic percentages in Travis county.
When you say:
"We must zero in on relationship-building in lower-income communities by supporting local, non-political grassroots organizations and addressing everyday needs to build trust and constant engagement."
This sounds like the natural area to build a super-precinct which will know the community and the local organizations and work with them.
Your story sounds a lot like mine, as we’ve discussed in the past. 🙂
My predecessor also did next to nothing, and when I took over my precinct, my neighbor told me that I had “Injected life” into our community. The Dallas County Democratic Party has at various times tried to implement a super precinct strategy. When I worked there in 2024, I created 4 super precincts in Southern Dallas County. But of course, that was only for one election cycle. The engagement was promising but this should be a long-term thing.
The problem is the lack of commitment on the county part. Travis county has gone full on the idea. They're written into the bylaws, the leads make up an executive advisory board to help the chair run the county between Cec meetings. The whole county has been mapped out and the structure relied on for the organization of the campaign and ground game https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1b1r30cKu_SNjoqwHoSTzS_b4xY2Zkok&usp=sharing
Sounds like you guys have it figured out.
We did kinda invent the concept, and it did take several cycles to figure it out and a lot of work and commitment to bring it off
But other counties should look at our work and build off it
When I started I did the analysis and discovered Precinct chairs did matter - when the precinct chair treated the precinct as a constituency as opposed to a sinecure (a office that confers status without work). When I took over my precinct there was little push from the county party to hold precinct chairs to their work and allowed a lot of the chairs just to use it as a platform for other personal goals. My precinct was barely Democratic and now it is 80% so.
So what happened. Several things. The precinct chair before me did nothing in the precinct. In fact, I lived the precinct for decades, help form and create the neighborhood association and I didn't even realize we had a chair. I filed for the position because I thought it was vacant. At that point I started recruiting a team and working the precinct. We know and have knocked on every door. I know the data of every voter and organize good canvasing during elections.
While this is a good isolated case study, we need to spread this sort of work. To do this Travis county implemented super-precincts. A super precinct is a set of 8 to 25 local precincts that share common issues and demographics. It works as a mutual support organization that keeps regional interests together and helps form an easier layer of management. Instead of the Travis county party office having to manage 247 (now 308) precincts only has to manage 20 super precincts. The super precinct meets regularly, allow the precinct chairs to share wisdom and tactics. The super precinct knows the local area. When a precinct chair steps down, the super precinct know who to ask to step up. When a precinct chair is new, the super precinct is a natural mentoring team. When running an election, the super precinct knows how to augment and change talking points and targets in a way that better addresses the local population. And canvases are no longer precinct events, but super precinct events.
My precinct is a member of CAPTCHA (Central Austin PrecincTs CHAirs). In a way it is the oldest super precinct, having formed as a group before the implementation of super precincts county wide. Currently all of our precincts has chairs, all the precincts have filed candidates for the primary. It has be several years since CAPTCHA has had a chair that was vacant for more than a few months. 5 of our (14) chairs are new in the last 6 months and we're working to educating them and have them effective before August. In 2020 and 2022 we picked our own targets, cut our own turf and ran our own canvases (taking a load of the central office). The result, CAPTCHA had one of the highest turnouts and Democratic percentages in Travis county.
When you say:
"We must zero in on relationship-building in lower-income communities by supporting local, non-political grassroots organizations and addressing everyday needs to build trust and constant engagement."
This sounds like the natural area to build a super-precinct which will know the community and the local organizations and work with them.
Your story sounds a lot like mine, as we’ve discussed in the past. 🙂
My predecessor also did next to nothing, and when I took over my precinct, my neighbor told me that I had “Injected life” into our community. The Dallas County Democratic Party has at various times tried to implement a super precinct strategy. When I worked there in 2024, I created 4 super precincts in Southern Dallas County. But of course, that was only for one election cycle. The engagement was promising but this should be a long-term thing.