2010 Election: The primary goal is to rustle up voters

Forget the TV ads, direct mail and automated robo-calls.

When the smoke clears from the plethora of party primaries across New York State Tuesday, winners will likely be those with the best "ground game" for pulling out their own grassroots supporters.

That's the labor-intensive effort where campaigns call or knock on the doors of potential primary voters, identify supporters and then contact them on primary day reminding them to vote.

"Throw all the polls out the window," said Frank MacKay, the state and Suffolk Independence Party chairman, "Whoever is ID'ing people and pulling them out is going to win the primary."

Candidates are loathe to detail the extent of their ground operations, but finding supporters and getting them to turn out in even modest numbers can have a huge impact in contests where turnout is only 5 to 10 percent. Primary turnout tends to be low because such elections are sporadic, come just after summer, long before traditional November Election Day, and are limited to party members.

"When people come back from summer, they are not always paying attention," said Dan Levitan, spokesman for the labor-based Working Families Party, which specializes in door-to-door battling. "You have to break through the noise, be there physically and convince them why an election matters."

"Primaries are not about issues, they are about turnout," said Michael Dawidziak, a political consultant.

"No one wakes up on primary day and says, 'Let's go out and vote' . . . In primaries, you have to ask or even beg people to come out." While a candidate is unlikely to close a 10-point gap in a general election, Dawidziak said, "You can in a primary because you're creating turnout."

The classic case of a grassroots groundswell was the 1982 gubernatorial primary in which then-Lt. Gov. Mario Cuomo won a huge upset over New York City Mayor Ed Koch, whom polls had said was leading by 18 percentage points. Cuomo's win came with the help of a half-dozen major unions, including teachers and telephone workers, who pulled out members and other Democrats in a below-the-radar appeal.

The impact of get-out-the-vote pushes in an already volatile electoral landscape could be far-reaching with races ranging from Republican primaries for governor and U.S. Senate, the Democratic race for attorney general, local Republican primaries for congressional seats in Nassau and Suffolk's East End as well as several Democratic battles to determine Assembly nominations in Nassau and Suffolk. There's even Conservative primaries both for governor and the seat in the first congressional district, though that primary is a write-in.

Get-out-the-vote efforts may be even more important this year because many primary candidates are just not that well known. Even in the hotly contested Democratic attorney general's race, a recent Quinnipiac poll showed all six contenders were in single digits, trailing "I don't know" by 70 percentage points.

Statewide, contenders may seek to pull votes in the areas where they are known, and local candidates will seek votes from any bloc they can find.

The need for such grassroots canvassing increases the clout of organized groups like unions and party committees that can mobilize supporters to vote in significant numbers. And better financed candidates have an edge because they can afford a grassroots effort.

Levitan warned candidates who rely solely on electronic media do so at their peril. "Campaigns all the time overlook the importance of voter contact," he said. "But those campaigns often come up surprised on Election Day."