Atlanta (1/6/20)– With several days until every last vote is counted and the election of Georgia’s US Senators is certified, one thing is certain– historic levels of turnout appear to be what made the difference, including an unprecedented level of engagement from Georgia’s LGBTQ community.
Over the past 8 weeks Georgia Equality has deployed a Get Out The Vote campaign the likes of which the organization has never executed before. Twenty, (majority people of color and under 30 years old), election staffers and 450 volunteers completed over 110,000 volunteer hours. We called over 25,000 people and had over 6,600 phone conversations with voters. We sent hundreds of thousands of text messages and completed over 450,000 total voter contacts. The volunteer program was bolstered by a state-wide paid phone program in the final week of the election that reached 135,000 voters, a direct mail campaign that reached 600,000 households, a targeted digital effort that resulted in 14 million total impressions, generated over 12K total website clicks and had over 3.3 million video completions, and pro-equality radio spots in Savannah.
“In November’s general election, Georgia Equality’s targeted universe of 500,000 pro-equality voters turned out to vote at a rate 5% better than the state-wide average, and looking at early voting data, we believe that we will meet or exceed that turnout rate for the 650,000 voters we contacted ahead of the runoff,” said Georgia Equality executive director Jeff Graham.
“This moment is especially meaningful because in these races, support for LGBTQ equality was used to promote campaigns, rather than as wedge issue to divide folks,” Graham continued. “It hasn’t been that long since even a modicum of support LGBTQ issues was the death knell of a state-wide campaign in Georgia.”
“The work that has been led by Georgia Equality’s staff and volunteers with participation from inside and out of Georgia, is simply unprecedented. Never before has our organization deployed a $1 million turnout campaign, let alone one that has seen such results, said Equality Foundation of Georgia board chair De’Andre Pickett. “Perhaps even more amazing was the outpouring of $1 million in support for our work, because it let us show what we can do with the necessary resources.”
“What this means is that Georgians made the final decision on protecting LGBTQ people at the federal level with the Equality Act, which we hope will be among the new Congress’s first priorities,” said Kenyatta Mitchell, chair of the board of Georgia Equality, “and that when we are under the gold dome this year talking about the importance of passing those same protections at the state level, more legislators will be listening.”
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Founded in 1995, Georgia Equality is the state’s largest advocacy organization working to advance fairness, safety, and opportunity for Georgia’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and allied Georgians.