Public Resource
Deep Canvassing to Shift Hearts, Mind and Votes
Caitlin Homrich-Knieling, We the People Michigan. The Commons Social Change Library

Deep canvass conversations can shift hearts, minds, and votes around divisive issues. Deep canvassing is a voter contact model where canvassers prioritize two things: 1) non-judgmentally inviting a voter to open up about their real, conflicted feelings on an issue and 2) sharing vulnerably about their own life, and asking curious questions about the voter’s life (especially the experiences that have shaped how they each feel about the issue). We the People Michigan ran successful deep canvassing campaigns in in 2019 on rights for undocumented migrants and Medicare for All. This resource describes the steps of those campaigns in detail, including designing canvassing scripts, successes and failures along the way, and more.