In the eerie expanses of east Las Vegas, our initial canvas revealed a bizarre tableau of faux horror: plastic zombie limbs haphazardly strewn, a scattering of imitation femurs, and a mock skull lending a grotesque flair. ‘GET OUT’, bellowed ominous letters dripping with fake blood, boldly sprawled across an old bedsheet. Adjacent to it, another macabre sheet pleaded ‘HELP’—a cacophony of mixed messages that puzzled us. I couldn’t help but wonder if the locals intentionally left their Halloween memorabilia up to deter enthusiastic canvassers like us, who were there to rally support for Kamala Harris.
Pity the swingstaters. In recent weeks, a significant influx of Californians has poured into Nevada and Arizona, arriving in droves on buses. Nevada, a battleground state, has leaned slightly towards the Democrats in the last four presidential elections, making its six electoral votes crucial in the tightly contested race ahead.
Panicking at the thought of potentially facing a second Trump presidency, many Democrats entrenched in blue strongholds have resorted to what could be termed ‘do-something-ism’. We engage in phone banking, despite the growing frustration of unanswered calls; we inundate voters with postcards, though we’ll never meet them; we venture into neighborhoods we’d typically avoid, knocking on doors. There’s a palpable skepticism among us regarding the effectiveness of these efforts. I suspect many act on a self-serving impulse to alleviate guilt. The dread of waking up on November 6—or the day the final tally is announced—without feeling like we did everything possible to stave off Trump’s terrifying promises looms large: mass deportations, aggressive political retribution, stringent bans on reproductive healthcare, and the looming specter of dictatorship.
But is this weekend canvassing truly effective? My husband and I couldn’t shake that question over our two days in the neon-soaked city. I would argue that it had to be impactful—after all, Elon Musk was reportedly investing tens of millions to deploy 2,500 door-knockers in critical swing states. My husband would merely shrug in response, “I guess so, then.” While we’ve heard that dedicated volunteers often outshine paid canvassers, I wondered how that applied to us, more casual volunteers. A friend, deeply entrenched in canvassing for Harris among Latino communities in Pennsylvania, revealed that he only started feeling effective in the last days of his efforts. It boils down to understanding the community and refining your message, he confessed.
For my husband and me, weekend warriors in activism, it was oddly disconcerting to champion a candidate in a community we had chosen mainly for its convenience and high concentration of likely Harris supporters—80 percent of Nevada’s registered Democrats reside in Clark County. Throughout our time there, a creeping embarrassment of our perceived arrogance overshadowed our efforts. We felt like missionaries venturing into a land fraught with unfamiliarity.
Like many outsiders, our knowledge of Las Vegas rarely extended beyond the scintillating Strip, which we were determined to sidestep. Unfortunately, the hotel we decided upon, the Red Rock, betrayed its rugged moniker by being ensnared by a glitzy casino ambience. Awakening on Saturday, I was assaulted by an unpleasant sensation in my throat and sinuses, which I attributed to the powerful solvents employed to tackle decades of odor from cigarette smoke and the general malaise within. Even the scent inside our rented vehicle reeked of noxious cleaning agents, making me crave the fresh air of California. As we drove to the ‘staging location’ for out-of-state canvassers, a billboard caught our attention, imploring people to vote against Proposition 3: ‘Don’t make Nevada like California.’ Proposition 3 aims to introduce ranked-choice voting and open primaries, echoing sentiments about preservation of local identity.
Our training was disappointingly scant: a brief 35-minute Zoom session prior to our Nevada arrival, followed by a mere seven-minute briefing by an organizer in a cramped, windowless room at the staging area, a storefront wedged between a taco joint and a tire shop. I felt ill-prepared, especially when told to flatly disregard ‘no soliciting’ signs, under the safeguard of the First Amendment, and to avoid placing campaign literature in mailboxes since we were not federal employees. Time management was stressed, as we were to limit interactions at each address to a brisk three minutes and 36 seconds; the target was to knock on a hundred doors over two three-hour shifts. The numbers became somewhat clearer after the organizer mentioned that, on average, we’d engage in one meaningful interaction for every fifteen doors we knocked. In a disconcerting twist, our training inexplicably lacked any focus on the unique features of our assigned territory, nor the broader dynamics of the city, county, or state.
When we finally received our turf lists, a palpable buzz filled the room, now brimming with fellow out-of-state volunteers, as the line to enter stretched down the sidewalk. We were thrust into the Democrat ground game machine, simply another cog in the expansive operation.
At the ominously marked ‘GET OUT’ house, I eagerly rang the bell. A cacophony of barking dogs erupted, and we patiently waited. The yapping ceased abruptly, yet no human presence materialized. I left a flyer near the eerie bedsheets and recorded the stop in the app as ‘not home.’ With a sigh, we trotted down the driveway toward the next destination on our checklist. An electronic voice announced, ‘You are currently being recorded’ as we passed by.
When logging our interactions into the app, we faced a mere seven choices: canvassed, not home, deceased, inaccessible, moved, refused to answer questions, threatened. Curiously absent was an option for those who simply wouldn’t come to the door, which seemed to define many of our encounters in Las Vegas. “Would you please stop coming here? We already voted!” shouted one frustrated voice from the other side of the door, echoing with the tone of a teenager caught in a homework argument. Outside another dwelling, we encountered a grotesquely full garbage bin crammed with campaign literature, reminding us that our voter list included numerous women working tirelessly in the casinos.
After knocking on about forty doors, we paused for a moment to recover. “Does anyone actually live here?” my husband mused. Although houses and cars dotted the driveways, tangible signs of life were sorely lacking—only the unsettling sounds of barking dogs echoed against the silence. We took a detour to a nearby strip mall where we spied a woman, entirely unclothed and her skin shining under the fading sun, nonchalantly walking through the parking lot, her arm partially shielding her breasts. Shaken, we quickly moved on to the next strip mall.
By dusk, our efforts yielded only 66 door knocks of our assigned 90, and we managed to converse with merely four voters. Among the few responses was a man at a house designated for female independent voters, who politely informed us that both he and his partner had already cast their votes for Trump, signaling us with a laid-back ‘hang ten’ gesture. However, we did stumble upon two elderly women, who hadn’t submitted their ballots but expressed intentions to vote for Harris. Together, we scrolled through the app to locate the polling center for one, but confusion reigned when she inquired if it was the school she passed on her way to church. As we examined the map on my phone, no clear answers emerged.
In the car afterward, my husband and I contemplated a more impactful method for future endeavors, noting we’d much prefer to drive elderly individuals to polling stations rather than engage in challenging canvassing efforts. We solemnly promised we’d consider this route if reality led us to a similar scenario in the future.
Our fourth conversation on Saturday involved a retired nurse who had already voted for Harris. She was just departing a house on our list, meant to be unoccupied. “Finally, someone has come to talk to me,” she exclaimed, thrilled for companionship. We explained that she didn’t appear on our canvassing lists since she had already completed her voting. Nonetheless, her eagerness to engage matched our desire for a meaningful exchange.
Years ago, she recounted, she had endured a painful miscarriage that necessitated a surgical procedure—a D&C, a method also employed in abortion procedures. She expressed a fear of how her children and their descendants would secure reproductive healthcare access in the future, coupled with anxieties for herself and her husband who rely on Social Security as a lifeline. Tears welled in her eyes as she lamented the thought of another Trump presidency, which filled her with anguish. However, she took a glimmer of hope from a recent Halloween party, sharing that nearly all neighbors in her court intended to vote for Kamala, aside from a notable Republican household across the street.
The following day, we found ourselves at another staging location—this time situated within an upscale strip mall housing a Whole Foods and a martial arts studio, albeit shadowed by drive-thru payday loans. Overhead, a digital billboard taunted us with Trump-centric ads reading: ‘Economy. Safety. Peace. Trump.’ Inside felt surprisingly upbeat, with fellow volunteers celebrating a milestone of knocking on a staggering hundred thousand doors in Nevada just that Saturday. An unexpected poll from the Des Moines Register indicated Harris had taken a slim three-point lead in Iowa, a state Trump had previously claimed twice. My husband queried a campaign staffer about the efficacy of canvassing, to which she confidently replied that for every fifty doors knocked, a canvasser could shift one voter ten percentage points closer to supporting their candidate. This tactic proved especially rewarding for those who intended to vote for someone but struggled with the process; in such cases, door-knocking raised the likelihood of a vote sevenfold.
Lone Mountain presented a starkly different experience—its neighborhood marked by wealth, eccentricity, and a pronounced desolation in northwest Las Vegas. The only visible passerby appeared barefoot and swathed in a blue blanket—or possibly a bathrobe. Sturdy walls encased many homes, towering at least eight feet, leading my husband to quip about an apparent bulk sale of concrete cinder blocks. We crept along streets with whimsical names like Conquistador St and Tee Pee Lane, feeling more like intruders trying to gain entry into the gated enclaves of sprawling McMansion developments that seemed designed to thwart casual foot traffic—an ominous detail in an election year.
Our face-to-face encounters with voters dwindled significantly; only a handful could be persuaded to engage. Some confirmed their votes for Harris, while a few rebuffed our inquiries with curt indifference. We only faced one instance of light hostility—a woman, marked as a registered Democrat, firmly stated she wasn’t voting and wouldn’t support Harris if she did, slamming the door shut. Mainly, we encountered indifference; of the 39 residences on our list, we marked fifteen as ‘inaccessible’.
A friend who canvassed in rural Pennsylvania had more success. She took her five-year-old along—a move that intensified her experience—and claimed to have around eight or ten substantial conversations with undecided voters. When I congratulated her on her effective efforts, she seemed less assured, candidly expressing her own uncertainty: “Oh fuck, I don’t know what’s going to happen here.”
Ding in areas with a high density of undecided or swing voters, where personal interactions could sway opinions more effectively than digital outreach.
As we prepared for the second day of canvassing, the atmosphere was charged with a palpable sense of urgency. There was a shared acknowledgment among the volunteers that the stakes had never been higher, and that every single conversation mattered. The volunteers around us, invigorated by a mix of camaraderie and a shared mission, inspired me to shake off the doubts that had clouded my mind the day prior.
Equipped with new insights from the previous day’s efforts, my husband and I seized the opportunity to refine our approach. We were determined to engage voters meaningfully, even if it meant venturing outside our comfort zones. Our first stop was a modest neighborhood that seemed like a microcosm of America, with diverse families coming and going, each embodying a unique story and perspective.
The first door we approached swung open to reveal a young woman wrangling two energetic toddlers. Upon our polite introduction, she paused, her brow furrowing as she processed our presence. “I really don’t have time right now, but I cast my ballot for Harris last week,” she replied, her voice tinged with exasperation. Yet, instead of retreating, I decided to press on gently. I asked her if she had any concerns about the election or issues on her mind that might shape her views. She momentarily softened, speaking about her worries around healthcare and the safety of her children. This brief interaction felt significant, a reminder of why we were out there—the conversations mattered.
At the next few houses, we encountered an elderly couple who welcomed us with warmth and shared their apprehensions about the direction the country was taking. Each of these exchanges, although brief, reinforced the importance of our mission. It felt gratifying to be a conduit for their thoughts, listening and empathizing while sharing our own hopes for the future.
As we continued, we faced others who were less receptive, some who politely declined engagement, while others expressed outright frustration at being approached. Yet, as we powered through the rejections, I noticed a shift in my mindset. The experience was less about tallying votes and more about being part of a collective conversation—a community grappling with its future.
In one of the final interactions of the day, we met a woman in her late sixties who proudly declared her support for Harris. As we conversed, she recounted her journey from lifelong apathy in politics to active engagement, sparked by her fears for reproductive rights. Her stories mirrored those of many women: personal, poignant, and powerful. By the end, we exchanged contact information, promising to follow up and check on her progress regarding her own voting plan. In that fleeting moment, I realized that canvassing was about forging connections and building networks of support in a fragmented landscape.
By the time we wrapped up our canvassing efforts on Sunday, I felt a sense of fulfillment that had eluded me on Saturday. This reinforcement of community through supportive dialogue was what motivated us to take on this challenging task; it was not just about securing votes but about understanding the hopes, fears, and realities that shaped our neighbors’ lives.
In the closing days leading up to the election, I resolved that if opportunities arose, I would lend my ear to more voters at polling stations rather than knocking on doors filled with unanswered pleas. After all, it would allow me to be part of a more significant moment, facilitating conversations and connections during an event that would shape lives for years to come.
As we headed back home, the distant glow of the Strip faded in the rearview mirror, replaced by the tranquil twilight of California skies. I felt a renewed sense of purpose and a belief that, regardless of the outcome, our efforts had contributed to an essential dialogue and a reminder of the transformative power of civic engagement.
