The Issue Voters Project

Today we are joined by Chip and Laynette Evans. After the 2016 election, Chip and Laynette, along with a handful of progressive activists, founded Indivisible Northern Nevada. From their website, Indivisible is a nonpartisan, volunteer organization focused on advancing humanitarian values through applying consistent, informed and ongoing pressure, primarily on our members of Congress.

Under the umbrella of the Northern Nevada Chapter if Indivisible, Chip and Laynette developed a new project known as the Issue Voters Project, to encourage like-minded voters who are neither registered Democrats nor Republicans. What is amazing is that this non-party block of voters is gaining voters faster than either of the two major parties. Over the last 2 election cycles, the Issue Voters Project has had phenomenal results, and is now being promoted nationally by Indivisible. The process they use and the results that they are getting give us good insight into how we can build dynamic competence in our larger communities and even in our families. 

Transcript

Chip and Laynette Evans 11.21.21 The Issue Voters Project

Susan Clark: [00:00:00] So welcome to the art of Dynamic Competence.

Chip: [00:00:03] Good morning. Good morning. Thanks for having us.

Susan Clark: [00:00:07] So glad to have you here. I've known both of you for quite a long time, and I know that you were incredibly successful when you were over in Silicon Valley. And since then have moved over to northern Nevada and gotten very much involved in democratic and progressive politics. Did you guys want to give a little bit about your background to our audience?

Chip: [00:00:30] Sure, I can do a little start. I got exposed to politics when I was very young. My dad got me into a candidate for a Democratic governor in Virginia. When I was growing up, I got involved in kind of political issues in college, ran for some offices there, headed up the student government portion for day students at Santa Clara University. And then there was kind of a pause while I started family and careers and all that sort of stuff. I got back into politics when the airport at San Jose was about to make a massive expansion and did a one and a half million dollar plan for it. And it was going to create the three worst intersections in the history of California right around that airport. And I said, Well, I guess there's still some work to be done in politics, so that turned out to be a successful effort. We got lots of changes made. And then when I came to northern Nevada, I was building some new businesses and Lynette sucked me in to the presidential campaign in 2004. And after that, we've been pretty steadily at it. Northern Nevada is just fascinating place for politics, and so I made some recommendations to the local county party. And next thing I know I'm the chair of it. So be careful what you do and went on to be the Democratic nominee for Congress from northern Nevada. Very Red District, lost but lost respectfully, which is what Democrats are allowed to do in this district only. There's never been a Democrat who's won this race right and have kept my hand in it most my activity alongside my party activity into this organization called Indivisible, and I'll let Lynnette pick it up from there.

Lynette: [00:02:14] Well, unlike Chip, I was never very political, although I would say I was politically aware from my teenage years and used to have really ruckus arguments with my dad over the Vietnam War and other issues of the day, but was never involved in politics until we moved to Nevada and after Trump won the presidential election in 2016. All across the country, of course, people wanted an opportunity to do something to fight back against what we thought would be the worst presidency in the history of our country. And so, along with about 6000 other communities across the country, we formed a chapter of Indivisible. So just a word about what Indivisible is because it's really quite a phenomenon. What happened after the election, in fact, within days of the election in 2016, a couple of folks who had been staffers to Democratic legislators on the Hill wrote a document, a 20 page document called the Indivisible Guide a guide to influencing national politics by influencing three people, your three members of Congress. And basically, they said, don't spend time trying to write letters or influence anybody in Congress other than those, the three that represent you, your two senators and your congressperson. Because they don't care if you're not their constituent, they don't care about you, they won't listen to you. But you have tremendous leverage over the people who represent you, the people you have an opportunity to vote in or out, right? So people started to use those tactics, say we gentrified the tactics that were used by the Tea Party, years before, by showing up at town halls, by presenting our disagreement with what was going on in Congress and as a result of the work that we did all across the country. As you know, we were able to stop the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Mm hmm.

Chip: [00:04:28]  [00:04:28]There is a word to be had here, and that's that Indivisible is actually a nonpartisan organization. We have a shorthand for that, We thank and spank our legislators, our three members of Congress, based on if they do something right. I don't care if they're Republican or green or Democrat or Purple Party or whatever. We thank them. And for those that even ones that seemingly line up with our values regularly when they do something wrong, we we let them know. That also creates opportunities for staying in touch. It lets those members of Congress know that somebody is watching and. Somebody cares, and you put together with that a significant social media presence and membership, and you have a powerful political force because there aren't that many groups that are very influential, although there are many groups, you know, the ones that matter to the voters that matter to them are the ones that they want to try to look good for. [00:05:31] And so right people have power in their voice and their presence, and we hope to amplify that. We use that word amplify a lot. One of the things that we struggle with sometimes is there are so many issues, certainly in the Trump era that we're being beat up on every day. But it seemed like before they were kind of campaigns over two or three weeks on a specific issue before they moved on. Well, it wasn't like that. We were having shotgun blasts every day. And so we can't be everything on every issue. And so very often we've created partnerships and collaborations with other organizations that share our values and work with them to amplify their activities and have convened a number of them around rallies for things that across a wide swath of political interest.

Susan Clark: [00:06:21] Ok, can we talk a little bit now about kind of traditional politics? Indivisible is quite different than traditional party politics. Do you want to explain that a little bit?

Lynette: [00:06:35] Sure. So I think the first piece goes back to what I said about the fact that indivisible is a progressive yet nonpartisan group. So in fact, some indivisible in very red states actually have recruited and supported Republican candidates that were more closely aligned with their values than whoever was the incumbent.

Chip: [00:07:05] Rumor is it the party you used to have moderates, where we keep looking for him.

Lynette: [00:07:10] So, so it isn't about Democrat or Republican. It's about moving policy closer toward our progressive values. So if we know a Democrat cannot get elected in a particular district, what an indivisible group may do is actually support a more moderate candidate from another party.

Chip: [00:07:33] So traditional party politics, I know a little about as a county, former county chair and a candidate, You know, it starts out with identifying your base, finding out from them. If, they are for or against you. And identifying those folks and reaching out for donations and support and volunteers. And they tend to swim in their own pool these days because we're so tribal in our politics in the United States right now.

Susan Clark: [00:07:57] And this is about supporting an individual.

Chip: [00:08:00] Yes, a specific candidate. You know, and we don't dismiss that because these are the ones that carry the torch for our values and our principles. So party politics, then you know, there's an identification process, then there's a process to put them on a list to get contacted somewhat regularly, although that we've fallen away from that. There used to be a phase where they spent a lot of time what they call persuasion, and they identify through phone calls or door knocks who might be persuadable to come over to your side. That's almost obsolete language or inappropriate language or just nonfunctioning concept at this particular time in our national politics. So many of the traditional campaigns actually have walked away from persuasion and say, You know, I can't pull a Trumpster out of a hole to vote for a left leaning candidate. It's a waste of time. It's a waste of money. It's a waste of energy. Let's make sure that we push the turnout of our own base. And of course, this is a tea party principle as well. So it's not like it's new to politics, but it's new to traditional politics and dropping so little energy into persuasion. Sure. [00:09:12] And then what's potentially different is that for nonpartizan organizations, you have an opportunity to have a legitimate conversation rather than just being able to tick off a box. So they sound like they're left leaning and they sound like they're right leaning. Contact, don't contact. The conversation can begin with what matters most to you in this election. [00:09:35]

Susan Clark: [00:09:35] So let me just clarify. So it sounds like that what you're reaching out to is mainly nonpartisan voters are your target through Indivisible. Is that correct?

Chip: [00:09:45] That's not wholly true, and I want to sharpen our language a little bit. You know, officially there's a category called nonpartisan. And then there are all these minor parties. [00:09:53] You know, the target for our group has been anybody that's neither a Democrat nor a Republican. [00:09:59] Ok. And then the other thing is that we don't disregard the rest. What we've found is that there are many organizations that are well-funded, are well known, have developed philosophies and strategies for reaching Partisan voters, [00:10:14] what we've been trying to do is find out how to be effective in harnessing those that are neither Democrat nor Republican to show up to vote if they're left leaning. It begins with a nonpartisan discussion, [00:10:27] and Lynette has been to the doors and has helped evolve that. So I'll let you discuss about our initial contact and process with those voters.

Lynette: [00:10:35] Sure. And I just want to clarify that what we're talking about now is a project that was initiated by Indivisible northern Nevada, which is our chapter of Indivisible, and it's called the [00:10:48] Issue Voters Project. It's what we believe and found once we got into it is that now more than a third of the electorate that have fled party politics that don't belong to either major party have done so deliberately or because they don't understand the differences between the two parties. [00:11:10] And even though some are very aware, there are still many who are not aren't keeping up with what's actually going on in Washington. [00:11:21] And so the issue voters project set out to identify voters that are not part of either party and determine how they align with our progressive values. [00:11:34] Do they align at all? Do they align somewhat on a particular important issue or not at all? And so by making phone calls, by knocking on doors, we were able to identify who among those voters would lean our way and might vote for a candidate around their position on a particular issue in 2018. Two of the really strong identifying issues were education and health care. Health care was a major differentiator that we used at the doors to help voters determine whether they would vote for Heller or Jacky Rosen, our Senate candidate.

Lynette: [00:12:19] Yes, and we did that without mentioning party. We started with a conversation of listening, asking questions. You know what's most important to you? What what would you like your representatives in Washington to do or to change about the issues that are important to you? And by using those questions, we were able to identify without saying we're from the Democratic Party or we're supporting this particular candidate, without doing any of that, just listening, we were able to determine were they likely to align with our progressive values. Once we identified, but say, someone who cares about health care and wanted to preserve the Affordable Care Act. [00:13:04] What we did then was we just presented a car to them that showed how Jacky Rosen voted on that issue on health care issues and how Dean Heller voted on health care issues and showed them well, since this is important to you. See how these candidates align or don't align with your issues and who you want to vote for. That's a way of addressing the electorate without talking about party. [00:13:31]

Susan Clark: [00:13:31] Great. And in that case, what it sounds like is what you're doing is identifying openness to have that conversation. And once you have that openness, then you're presenting the different candidates, their views not as a party alignment, but as simply what their statements are, the factual statements that they have made and allow someone to begin to ask the question of do I feel comfortable aligning with this or not? Is that correct?

Lynette: [00:13:58] That's exactly right. And that you asked earlier what distinguishes the way that we've been working from how traditional party electoral politics works? And so one of the things that we're very aware of is that if you show up to someone's door, someone who is not a member of the Democratic Party and you present them with a slate card that says, Well, these are the candidates that we think are the ones you should vote for. That doesn't work with people who have made a specific decision to leave party politics behind or to not be a member of one of the major parties. That doesn't work at all. So we are respectful of people who are going to split their tickets.

Susan Clark: [00:14:43] I'm intrigued to talk a little bit more about this process that you're using, especially as we're on this podcast called Art of Dynamic Competence. What is interesting is the dialog that you're having with people. What we've been talking about in the podcast is that they're hierarchical structures. There's unconscious assumptions that we all carry about the world around us and how we fit into it. That a big part of being dynamically competent is to begin to take in new information and step outside of that hierarchy when we need to and expand that to see things differently. And I'm intrigued with how your conversation and your questions and your presentation to folks helps in that dialog of expanding their view. Do you feel that it does? And if you do, how does it expand their thinking?

Chip: [00:15:34] Well, let me take a shot at that, along with what I think are some learnings from our Project. One is that, you know, the hierarchy that exists out there is the two party system in the United [00:15:45] States. And then somehow we have managed to get a whole bunch of people to make the assumption the parties are the same. Well, it doesn't take a nanosecond to say no, they are not the same. But in one key respect, they are the same. They make mistakes. They have people in them that are good and people in them that are bad. And the ratio, you know, may be very different in one's mind than the other. But I think that's what has pushed a lot of people who really lean left or lean right to declare I don't want to associate with the party because they wind up feeling like they're going to have to defend that party and sometimes its parties are indefensible. Mm [00:16:26] hmm. And so when you go to a door of someone who is registered as, you know, unaffiliated with either of the parties, many times they already do associate with the party's basic values or view on life or perspective. And, you know, but for this creepy and potentially rightful disgust with party politics, they would have been a Republican or they would have been a Democrat, you know, under an old system and probably probably somewhat moderate about that. [00:16:59] And the second thing is that when you change the context from parties to issues, that's where the conversation begins. [00:17:06]

Susan Clark: [00:17:06] Say more about that.

Chip: [00:17:08] Well, part of our training is when you go to the door, you know, you can't be wearing your your MAGA hat and expect an honest answer from everybody. You can't be holding your slate card up when you arrive and announce that I'm a Democrat now, let's talk about what's important to you. They shut down on those conversations because one, I think there's a great number of people who simply prefer not to confront. And politics has become a very confronting source. Families can't even talk to each other about it. Siblings don't many times because they've seen the other's Facebook posts. You just know that you're setting up a fight. [00:17:45] And so as far and as long as you can keep it out of raw political party positions and into issues, not that you won't disagree at the end, but it creates a different kind of conversation. And it's that different kind of conversation that now allows you to put something in a context, because now you can start talking about human beings, not parties. You can talk about family experiences and not parties. You can talk about examples that you know, that had big impact on you from the news, for whatever source that you're getting or something you read in Facebook. It opens up a conversation, [00:18:21] and it's from that point that, you know, a really skilled person at the door or on the phone is going to be able to start what would have been a persuasion process. [00:18:32] And that's if that's really important to you, test it. If it's that important to you, that means that you'd probably most want a candidate who has views like yours about that issue to be the one representing you and you don't have put a label on them. But you know, are you being true to your own values and you're entitled to do that, by the way? So we'll give you the information and we encourage you to do that. [00:18:57]

Lynette: [00:18:57] I would add that some percentage, hopefully less than 50 percent, but some percentage of the people we're speaking with are not going to align with our values. And there is, as Chip said earlier, [00:19:10] there is no value in trying to have a conversation with those folks and trying to turn them in our direction. We don't have a shared set of values, but we can still be respectful and polite. And the format of our conversation begins with where something like we're checking in with our neighbors about the upcoming election and wondering what's most important to you as you think about making a decision about who you're going to vote for? What are the issues you most care about? So once we get an answer that tells us that person is not going to align on with our values. Our conversation ends, but politely without ever having any discussion about candidates or party, right? [00:20:03]

Chip: [00:20:03] I do want to do want to say every now and then that doesn't quite apply. You know the health care discussion turned out to be very broad. I mean, there were Republicans who understood that the system is broken because they're usually older, they're usually having the insurance companies jerk around which doctors they can go to and which ones they get. And they know the system is broken and pharmacy costs are huge prescription costs. [00:20:29] So every now and then, you know, if that really matters to you, you have to lose your party preference and just say, you know, this is so important to me that, you know, I'm going to support the candidate that's closer to my view on health care and the gun discussion, which is always toxic in Nevada in particular. Every now and then you'll pull somebody away when they realize, you know, I've been a gun owner my whole life, I supported the NRA in my whole life. But things have changed, and I do believe we need background checks. There are too many nuts with guns now. It's not my hunting club anymore. [00:21:03]

Susan Clark: [00:21:03] It's part of your process as you engage people is to really help them understand what is important to them. Is that something that often people aren't clear about and aren't aren't connecting that issue that they care about with the candidate that they've been supporting or the party that they question?

Lynette: [00:21:21] Well, yeah, that is a great question. Sometimes it's very clear and a deeper conversation isn't really called for, but often that deeper conversation will start with, you know, let's say somebody says, Well, health care is my most important issue that might be followed up with a question that sounds like, well, tell me how that affects your life or your family life. And then often what will emerge is, Oh, you know, well, my my mother died of cancer. She didn't have health care. [00:21:54] We would ask them to actually root their concern over a particular issue in how that looks in their own personal or family experience or community experience. [00:22:09] You know, tell me, how has that affected you? How has that affected a family member? Do you have somebody in your family that has been affected by the problems that we're having with our health care system, right? And so that helps people begin to identify not just an issue, but how it fits with their daily lives. [00:22:33] We could have that conversation about environmental issues. Well, how has climate change affected you? Well, you know, this year in particular, we had to stay indoors for, you know, almost a month. Yes, because of the poor quality, the poor air quality. So having people really begin to connect how their vote can impact what's happening with their daily in their daily lives, right? [00:23:02]

Susan Clark: [00:23:02] And to me, that sounds like what you're doing is helping people become conscious of unconscious assumptions that they've been making all along. And from that begin to be able to make a different kind of choice.

Chip: [00:23:14] You know, every now and then we'll come to a door and we'll come to that conversation about what issues are most important to you. And they do get kind of glassy eyed. And the next thing when you see that in our process would be, well, here are some of the main things we're hearing from your neighbors. Do any of these chime in? You know, is it health care? Is it taxes or whatever? And then, you know, again, you're fostering that conversation, getting them to think and then said, Yeah, know, by the way, you know, I got this horribly expensive prescription that every month I had to pay a thousand bucks for this. And you know, you remind them what's happening in your life. This should be your issue. You're entitled to voice your issue and get what you want from your representatives on the table and support the ones that you know are trying to address it.

Susan Clark: [00:24:08] Well, those are some great examples that you've been giving. Are there any other examples that you can think of that really show how it is that this process is different than traditional politics and as importantly, how it's had an impact on other people's lives?

Lynette: [00:24:27] So in our conversations, we've identified people who care deeply about the economy and not being able to earn enough money that they can support their family with one job. They have to work two jobs, sometimes more, in order to be able to support their family. But I think the greatest results we've seen have been around health care. So I guess a couple of legislative sessions ago in our state legislature, our elected officials made some changes that really made a difference in how some people are getting their health care. And let's say somebody who has a chronic and serious condition where they need specific kinds of treatment and they need to stay with a certain doctor. Those people have been better off as a result of choosing more progressive legislators than they were in the past in terms of having a continuum of care.

Susan Clark: [00:25:33] Let's look now a little bit at the results. What's been so impressive to me is the results you've had on voting and the data that has been collected on the efforts that you've done and other indivisible groups have done. Do you want to talk about those?

Lynette: [00:25:47] Sure, I can only speak to the results that we had. So we ran this project, the issue voters project in the 2018 and the 2020 elections, they looked very different because of the pandemic in terms of the tactics we used, but with the same mindset of approaching nonpartisan or non-democratic non-Republican registered voters. [00:26:14] And the results that we saw in our targeted demographic were that we saw about a twenty three percent bump in voter turnout among the people we identified as leaning our way. That's almost unheard of. That was our twenty eighteen result in our 2020 result was also significant, not as not quite as large. I think the reason for that was that we had such a huge turnout in 2020 that the difference we made was not as significant as it was in the 2018 midterm. [00:26:55]

Chip: [00:26:55] Right now, it sounds like it's important right about now to say, you know, after we've identified somebody that appears to be leaning our way, we would send cards or letters or phone calls

Lynette: [00:27:07] Saying or visit their door again,

Chip: [00:27:08] or visit their door again, which a lot of times in the mass market. Party politics process doesn't really happen, but we'd remind them that, hey, you know, they get letters that somebody else said, thank you for supporting health care issues like I do, and please turn out to vote. And so our get out the vote effort was very targeted. It was issue based. It was based on the issue that they identified as strong enough to move them to show up. And that's where the gold is.

Susan Clark: [00:27:43] So it sounds like as you go out and do this work, a couple of things happen. You're able to have a conversation with people that is based on issues not on their political party. And through that conversation, you're able to identify some people who have a leaning in the direction that you're interested in. And for those that aren't, it's left with a respectful disagreement and understanding that there's a difference, but a valuing of them as another human being, which I think is so important in today's world.

Lynette: [00:28:15] I really wanted to adjust the language because we have in our head, of course, our own mindset about why we support a particular issue, a particular way. But once we have used the questions, the inquiry with someone in the being curious with them enough to know they don't align with what we have in our head about our values, we don't need to go further and even say we disagree because the conversation doesn't start from a position of, I think, this way. What do you think it's starts with? What do you think? Oh, thank you very much for sharing your opinion.

Susan Clark: [00:29:01] Oh, that's a great clarification.

Chip: [00:29:03] Interestingly enough, Nevada gets swarmed by Californians during elections because California is, you know, relatively blue, and they know that their efforts here might in fact make a bigger difference than back on their home turf. Mm hmm. And many times they've come over to work with the party and and that process, and it hasn't worked for them nearly as well. [00:29:23] And what we're able to say is, you know what, you're not going to be responsible for agreeing or disagreeing or persuading at the door. You know, at the most primary level, you're facilitating a conversation and you're gathering information and really your responsibility ends there. You need not confront. You need not reject. You need not negotiate. You need not debate. But you know, when there are opportunities to be supportive and you sense that they're going to align with you on the issue that aligns with them, then spend a little extra time. Get the last of the information you need to stay in touch. [00:29:57]

Susan Clark: [00:29:57] Where do you think the project is heading into this next election? Are there things that you've learned that now are going to modify what you're doing or what's coming now in this next election cycle?

Lynette: [00:30:09] That's a really good question, I'm not sure that I'm ready with a complete answer, but here's some things that we've learned over the last couple of cycles. One is, I think that since we don't know how the pandemic will look six months or eight months or a year from now, and whether knocking on doors will be something that's a safe thing to do, the tactics we use may continue to evolve. I know that when we started the project in 2018, we primarily used phone banking and door knocking. In 2018, we did a lot more work using postcards because knocking on doors didn't seem safe.

Chip: [00:30:55] There are a lot of people that can find time and are willing to do postcards. I don't think we fully appreciated how big a will of willingness there is for that.

Lynette: [00:31:04] What we found was that those who were reached by postcard and those were people targeted based on demographics rather than having had a conversation with them. But we did see a higher turnout among those folks with issue based get out the vote postcards that are handwritten. So this isn't something we have printed up en masse and send out. It's these are handwritten person to person messages. Mm hmm. And we did see that those were effective, so we may continue to evolve. I think the other thing that continues to diminish is the number of people who are open to answering their phone when they can't identify the caller. So I think phone banking, although it will continue to be used, may continue to evolve and be used less and less and be replaced by text messaging. More people respond to text messaging, and that's becoming a more ubiquitous tool.

Chip: [00:32:11] One of the things we do expect to be doing in this next election cycle is supporting advice to groups way beyond northern Nevada. Indivisible National featured our project in its first national conference with a bunch of other groups. Lynette has trained groups throughout the country, and we've actually made presentations to party organizations, county parties describing this methodology in that, you know, everybody's kind of grappling for what to do with this new large group, the group that's going to sway the elections now of nonaligned voters. Mm hmm. We're just a couple of steps ahead of most in hammering out a workable program and identifying the landmines and and providing some of the training.

Lynette: [00:32:56]  [00:32:56]So. And just to put an exclamation point on that we're seeing in our own county as well as in the state of Nevada and across the country, that more and more voters are registering as nonpartisan or with a third party. And so both the Democratic and Republican parties are losing voters to this unaffiliated group. And that makes it even more important that we must approach these folks and make sure that those who agree with us turn out to vote, and that's not a sure thing. So I think the effort that we've begun or that we've pioneered needs to take hold in lots of places with lots of groups because our little indivisible group certainly can't make a difference all by ourselves. [00:33:50] But this work that we've done, reaching out to other indivisible groups, I think will make a difference in the election. I'm especially excited about a partnership we have with a group in Arizona who are trying to turn their legislature, as well as make sure that they retain their, I think Senator Kelly, who's up for reelection.

Susan Clark: [00:34:13] Well, and [00:34:13] I think what's so exciting to talk to you in our podcast Art of Dynamic Competence is what I see you providing is a set of tools that allow for people to move beyond tribal thinking. And for those who are starting to make that transition, ways of communicating that allow for a deeper understanding and an awareness to rise up in what's important and how do we best get there rather than using the old saying is when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. What we're beginning to do is is have people share in nuance, be able to see other perspectives. And I think the work that you're doing, although it is focused on a progressive agenda, it's just an important process for how we can talk with each other and fvind that common ground and explore that in a more conscious fashion, [00:35:12] so I'm very excited with the work you're doing and so glad that, as you say, this little project in indivisible this started here in northern Nevada and is now spreading throughout the country, which is very exciting for everybody involved.

Chip: [00:35:29] It reminded me that I have some hope that some of what we've discussed actually may facilitate some non combative political discussions within families around the Thanksgiving table. You know, there is a way to listen and ask questions without putting a judgment on the end of it. Will I disagree or agree? You know, just the art of listening in places where political discussions are going to happen. Just keep exploring with questions,

Susan Clark: [00:35:54]  and the issues and staying on issues. No, very nice. Well, thank you so much for your time today. It's been wonderful talking with both of you.

Chip: [00:36:04] Thank you so much for having us.