THE 2020 ELECTIONS

UNITE HERE Local 11 has been running political campaigns in Arizona since 2007. During this pandemic, this cycle has been no exception. We developed comprehensive “contactless” door-to-door canvassing protocols to minimize risk and set out 400 canvassers a day to knock on doors and talk to voters. We knocked on 800,000 doors, made 2.5 million calls, talked to 250,000 Arizonans, and won the state for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris! More important than any demographic changes, it is the face-to-face conversations with voters that has made Arizona turn blue in 2020.

UNITE HERE organized the largest union door-to-door canvassing operation in the U.S. in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic, which at its peak put 98% of the union’s members in the country’s hotels, airports, restaurants, and casinos out of work. The union was among the first groups in the country to begin door-to-door canvassing in 2020, a year in which many groups initially abandoned in-person canvassing—a cornerstone of GOTV electoral work—in the face of the global pandemic.