It’s late afternoon in a strip mall on the north side of Tucson, in a storefront with a faded sign out front that says Kards 4 You. Now, just a few days before the election, it’s a temporary campaign office for CADC LLC, a company that runs a field operation for the League of Conservation Voters Victory Fund, which campaigns for pro-climate candidates.
About 35 paid canvassers have shown up for work, the most the group has seen for a single shift. The canvassers range in age from early 20s to late 60s. They are Black, Latinx, Asian, Indigenous, white. They all wear yellow safety vests with big green stickers that say, “Climate Vote.”
“It shows we have a reason to be in the field,” team leader David Semrau says as the canvassers get settled in chairs. “Remember, we’re out there because we wanna be.”
In battleground states from Pennsylvania to Arizona, volunteers and paid canvassers have fanned out by the hundreds in the final days of the campaign to prod residents to vote and keep pro-climate candidates in mind when they do. For many, that means a vote for Vice President Kamala Harris as well as other Democrats up and down the ballot.
But in Arizona, that’s long been an uphill climb. Aside from Joe Biden’s narrow 10,457-vote margin four years ago, the state has voted for the Republican presidential candidate since 2000, and before that, dating back to Dwight Eisenhower in 1952. .
In cities such as Tucson and Phoenix, which had 113 straight days over 100 degrees this year, extreme heat is a real-life reason why voters should focus on climate when they cast their ballots. Still, despite the miserable temperatures, the economy remains the top issue among Arizona voters.
So, on a late October day when forecasters predicted the temperature would once again hit close to 100 degrees, the canvassers push on.
Semrau reminded the canvassers to bring lots of water. Originally from Seattle, Semrau moved here to be warmer, he said, and loves the heat — most of the time. Two years ago, he started canvassing for Democrats running for the U.S. Senate and hasn’t stopped since.
At a time when there is more money in politics than ever, operations like this are increasingly the norm. On this day alone, some 900 canvassers are knocking on doors in battleground states across the country for the League of Conservation Voters, said national field director Erin Phillips.
At this late stage in the race, the canvassers’ script is all about getting people out to vote. They only knock on the doors of registered voters. They remind them that voting has already begun in Arizona, ask who they will vote for, encourage the undecided to choose Democrats at the top of the ticket, and then help anyone who hasn’t yet voted to make a plan to do so.
After some role-playing at the office, the canvassers get into their own cars or take ride-shares out to their “turf” to knock on doors. The first stop is a condo complex in central Tuscon where mostly older people live.
Sean Garewal has worked as an emergency medical technician, volunteered in cooling centers during the extreme heat and is working with his family on a project to help unhoused people. He said he worries that the heat has become “lethal.” Indeed, Pima County, where Tucson is located, has recorded 180 heat-related deaths this year, and Maricopa County — where Phoenix is located — more than twice that.
At most doors, people tell Garewal they already voted — and that they voted for the candidates on Arizona’s ballot that the League of Conservation Voters is pushing: Harris, Ruben Gallego for U.S. Senate, and Kirsten Engel, who is running for the congressional district that includes suburban Tucson.
Garewal came across two men outside one of his target houses working on a pipe. They’d already voted, they said, for Democrats up and down the ballot. “We like our rights,” one said.
J.P. Dire, who is in his late 60s, was struggling to make ends meet when he heard about the canvassing jobs, which pay up to $23 an hour. For years, he worked selling stainless steel. He recently bought a new pair of walking shoes and a shirt that wicks the sweat away on hot days. “Even Republicans will offer you water,” he said.
Dire said he believes in the work. He’s from Colorado and said he’s worried about the increasing number of fires there. He encountered a few people at the doors who didn’t want to talk. While at one house, a man came out from the neighboring house to ask what’s going on. Dire gave him the script but the man looked skeptical.
“There’s definitely more toxicity in some of the interactions,” said Franklin Naughton, national director of OTG, the company that oversees CADC. “Especially in Arizona.”
“It’s just harder to change people’s minds now than previously,” said Phillips, the field director.
Ethan Rigel is a field organizer who still canvasses. He was delivering pizzas when he saw the canvassing position on the job website Indeed. He spent time in Japan and worked in customer service. He likes talking to people, he’s a vegetarian, and he proudly drives an EV.
“Thankfully, there’s not a lot of people denying that climate change is real anymore — especially here,” he said.
Rigel said it’s actually harder to talk to people about the climate on the hottest days — that the extreme heat just makes people less responsive. They don’t want to come out of the AC.
He knocks on the door of a 91-year-old man who has a sign out front reading, “This house harvests rainwater.” Rigel starts the script, but the man says he already voted, but not for the candidates the League of Conservation Voters is supporting. He politely closes the door.
Phillips said by and large, canvassers are not out on the streets to change minds. Research shows that’s what TV ads are for. Instead, canvassing is all about turnout. Phillips said a good script at the doors can result in a 3% increase in the likelihood of voting, though different sources suggest various numbers for the extent of the increase. In a state where the presidential race is still razor close, she said, that’s an increase that can make a difference.
Margaret Frankiewicz canvassed all summer out of CADC’s Phoenix office — her hottest day was 120 degrees — mainly because she needed a job. But once she started talking with would-be voters, she found she liked connecting with people. “They thought I was pretty nuts for being out there,” she said.
Angela Roberts started canvassing after breaking with the Mormon church and losing custody of her six children. A Republican most of her life, she said she wants to be an example to her kids, who she believes are on the “wrong side” of the issues. “This work is my voice,” she said.
The League of Conservation Voters also works in Phoenix with Chispa Arizona, a group that works to empower Latino communities while influencing policy, protecting natural resources and combating climate change. Chispa Arizona is also sending out canvassers to talk to voters about candidates for the state Legislature and for the Arizona Corporation Commission, which regulates the state’s utilities.
“We are 30% of the electorate,” Chispa executive director Vianey Olivarria said of Latinos. “We are going to be the decision makers.”
She said some predominantly Latino neighborhoods of Phoenix can be 5 degrees hotter than others, because they lack shade trees and foliage. Meanwhile, the cost of staying cool is only going up, and studies show that Phoenix and other desert cities may eventually be uninhabitable.
“It’s a matter of life and death here in Arizona,” she said. “When we do our electoral work, we want to make sure that people truly understand.”
The Chispa canvass is operated by When We Mobilize, which was founded by former Arizona state legislator Reginald Bolding, who said he wanted organizations to be able to hire canvassers directly from the communities where they’ll be knocking on doors.
On another hot afternoon, young canvassers — many of them high school students showing up for a shift after school — packed their campaign literature in tote bags and grabbed water.
Daniel Moreno is 17. He used to work in retail before a friend told him about the canvassing effort. His father works in door-to-door sales, selling sun screens to reduce indoor temperatures. Though Daniel can’t vote, he said he believes in climate justice.
“We’re all pretty young — we care about the future,” he said. With rising temperatures, “Every year is like a record-breaking year. That’s just ridiculous.”
Nuvia Enriquez, communications director at Chispa Arizona, said work like this is not just for the electoral moment, but for the long haul. She credits an increase in the number of registered voters in Arizona to the ground game of movements like hers.
“People have built resilience and people have had to build power,” she said, “because there’s no other choice.”
