Writing Your Field Plan
As much as we would like to, campaigns don't have the people, time or money to talk to every voter. But picking which voters to contact and which to leave alone isn't always obvious. This session we'll look at how to break down the numbers, demographics and voter histories in your district and build your universe of likely voters. Then we’ll talk about how to write a solid workable plan to build a grassroots organization it will take to contact them.
Matt was born and raised in rural Iowa and first got involved in politics at the University of Iowa. In 2001 he managed his first campaign in an attempt to elect a UI student to the Iowa City Council. Not long after he was elected Vice-President of the student body where he fought against radical tuition hikes, corrupt apartment management companies and police harassment on campus.
After graduation Matt moved to Madison, WI and spent the 2004 election cycle fundraising for the DNC and doing GOTV for MoveOn.org. In 2006 he was selected to join Russ Feingold’s Patriot Corps program and was deployed to Montana where he did Field Organizing for Senator Jon Tester.
For the last four years Matt has managed a national training program for Democratic activists and candidates at Democracy for America. Since joining DFA he has organized over 72 campaign trainings in 34 states, training over 5,000 people to become better activists, campaign staff or candidates.
