Crist looks to replicate Democrats’ Georgia strategy in Florida race against DeSantis

Charlie Crist is leaning into an unusual strategy to turn out voters in his bid for Florida governor: paying people to talk to their friends, family and neighbors about his campaign.

The tactic — dubbed “relational organizing” by political professionals — is relatively new in the world of campaign politics, though it’s not untested. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) relied on the strategy ahead of his successful 2021 runoff campaign against former Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.).

Hoping to replicate that success, Crist’s campaign — in coordination with the Florida Democratic Party — is now working with Relentless, a firm formed by a group of former Ossoff campaign staffers. Crist’s operation has recruited more than 600 organizers statewide as part of the program, with concentrated efforts in Miami-Dade and Broward counties in South Florida, as well as in Tampa.

The premise behind the strategy is simple: Instead of sending out volunteers and campaign staffers to have unexpected — and sometimes uncomfortable — conversations with strangers, relational organizing relies on paid organizers or volunteers to have more natural, free-flowing political discussions with their acquaintances.

Proponents of relational organizing say that those conversations are often more persuasive and do a better job at earning people’s support than more traditional methods of voter outreach.
“We know that a conversation between people who know each other is about 2 1/2 times more effective than a conversation between strangers,” said Greta Carnes, the former national organizing director for Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign and one of the co-founders of Relentless.

“When you hear about [Crist] because your mom has texted you three times in a week about Charlie Crist, you’re going to trust your mom,” she said.

By the campaign’s estimate, its organizers will have had more than 20,000 conversations over the course of the 2022 midterm cycle — the equivalent of knocking on about 300,000 doors. 

Crist’s campaign isn’t the only operation trying out a relational organizing strategy. The Texas Democratic Party rolled out a similar volunteer program earlier this year, dubbed Connect Texas, while another group, the Progressive Turnout Project, has invested in a paid relational organizing program in battleground states like Georgia and Nevada.

Crist’s campaign has so far spent about $1 million on the effort. It’s mainly targeting low-propensity Hispanic and Black organizers, believing that those organizers will help the campaign effectively target other low-propensity voters in their communities.

“Florida is so huge and there are so many voters that can be really hard to reach,” Carnes said, describing the Crist campaign’s effort as something of a test case. Such organizing tactics haven’t been deployed on such a large scale in Florida.

“How does this work specifically for organizing Hispanic communities and organizing this effort in English and in Spanish?” Carnes asked, adding: “I don’t think we’re just running a cookie cutter version of a program we’ve run before.”

Of course, the program may have to do some heavy lifting. An average of polls in the race for Florida governor shows Crist trailing Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) by nearly 10 points, an astounding margin in a state where the top contests are often decided by a percentage point or less.

By comparison, an analysis of Ossoff’s relational organizing program found that it improved turnout by an estimated 3.8 percentage points among the 160,000 voters targeted by the effort. Ossoff ultimately won that election by a scant 1.2-point margin.

Of course, that kind of improvement can’t be applied across the board, Carnes said. For one, relational organizing is still a novel concept, and Ossoff’s campaign put it to use over a matter of weeks leading up to his January 2021 runoff victory. Crist’s campaign, on the other hand, has been at it for months.

“The Ossoff program was the first program of its kind,” Carnes said. “From the get-go, it was very much an experiment, so we can’t take that 3.8 percent bump and apply it everywhere.”

But Crist’s campaign sees the relational organizing strategy as a longer-term investment that could help give Democrats a path forward in a state that has seen Republicans make significant gains in recent years.

“Relational organizing is setting our campaign apart and laying down a roadmap for a new tactic that Florida Democrats can use moving forward,” Sydney Throop, Crist’s campaign manager, said in a statement. “Our program isn’t just about connecting with Democrats, it’s about reaching Floridians, often left out of the political process, and bringing them into the fold. That’s how Florida Democrats will play to win for cycles to come.”

Updated: 12:11 p.m.