The Democratic Blue Wave that began with California's Prop 50, and ended on the East Coast with big wins in Virginia, New Jersey and New York was felt in North Texas' Senate District 9, and in the Harris County suburbs, too, where a slate of Cypress-Fairbanks School Board candidates focused on education and a separation of church and state swept. Jennifer Lorenz is the founder and president of the Cypress-Tomball Democrats, who participated in our H-Town Hits Back Live Podcast recording in Houston. Her op-ed was originally published in The Houston Chronicle on October 27.

I grew up knocking on doors to raise money for the March of Dimes. In 2008 and 2012, I knocked on doors for presidential candidate Barack Obama. In 2016, I rang my neighbors' doorbells because I was running for my homeowners’ association board. (It worked: I beat a long-time board member by three votes.) 

In 2018, I knocked on doors in support of Beto O’Rourke. And for every primary and general election since then, I’ve kept at it as a volunteer canvasser.

Now I’m the president of the Cypress-Tomball Democrats club in deep-red northwest Harris County. And this year, we’re doing things differently.

Usually, canvassing means that you walk a neighborhood, following a “turf” map of voting precincts that has been “cut” (divided into households) by someone who directs you to particular doors. Before you go up to one of those doors, a phone app shows you the name of the person you’re asking for and gives you a suggested script for the conversation to have with that person.

For most of these canvassing events, our Democratic “turf cutters” would use an algorithm that was supposed to produce a “likely Dem” at the door.  For canvassers walking in Democrat-heavy places like the Heights or Acres Homes, maybe that algorithm worked. But it definitely didn’t work well out here, where MAGA flags and anti-Biden signs pepper neighborhoods.

I grew up knocking on doors to raise money for the March of Dimes. In 2008 and 2012, I knocked on doors for presidential candidate Barack Obama. In 2016, I rang my neighbors' doorbells because I was running for my homeowners’ association board. (It worked: I beat a long-time board member by three votes.) 

In 2018, I knocked on doors in support of Beto O’Rourke. And for every primary and general election since then, I’ve kept at it as a volunteer canvasser.

Now I’m the president of the Cypress-Tomball Democrats club in deep-red northwest Harris County. And this year, we’re doing things differently.

Usually, canvassing means that you walk a neighborhood, following a “turf” map of voting precincts that has been “cut” (divided into households) by someone who directs you to particular doors. Before you go up to one of those doors, a phone app shows you the name of the person you’re asking for and gives you a suggested script for the conversation to have with that person.

For most of these canvassing events, our Democratic “turf cutters” would use an algorithm that was supposed to produce a “likely Dem” at the door.  For canvassers walking in Democrat-heavy places like the Heights or Acres Homes, maybe that algorithm worked. But it definitely didn’t work well out here, where MAGA flags and anti-Biden signs pepper neighborhoods.

This year, Cypress-Tomball Democrats decided to assist a slate of candidates for the Cy-Fair ISD school board — people who are pro-public education, anti-school vouchers and definitely not the Christian nationalists who’ve taken over our board. This is different from past elections when similarly aligned candidates would split Democratic votes. Cy-Fair, with 117,000 students, is the third-largest school district in Texas. This off-year election is a big, big deal.

So we decided to change up our door-knocking routine. This time, we focused on turning out the votes of the most likely Democrats. We made sure that the turfs we were going to canvass were cut only into “2D” and “3D” lists — people who had voted in at least two or three of the most recent Democratic primaries. It’s a much better way to tell whether someone is actually a Democratic voter.

Spread-out, heavily Republican Cypress doesn’t have that many Dem doors that are “walkably” next to each other. So this year, we’re doing what we call “carpool canvassing.” We have teams of two: a driver who uses the app to locate the next Dem on our list; and the “door knocker,” who gets in and out of the car with the campaign literature, ready to have a conversation and to place yard signs if they’re approved. And of course, our process is purposefully designed for the benefit of the block-walker during hot and humid campaign months. Getting back into an air-conditioned car between stops is important given that the majority of our team are self-monikered "Making Aging Gals Angry" women. 

The door interactions the past three months have been a refreshing sea change. We’ve been met with genuine gratitude. We’ve had people cry happy tears to find that there are actually other Dems in their area. Several Black voters have shared how incensed they are that the current school board removed references to slavery from textbooks. Parents have told us how angry they are about the book bans, the tragic firing of librarians and the catastrophic bus cutbacks. And even people without kids in the schools have shared their worry that, with the current board ruining what had once been a “destination district,” their property values could fall.

What’s the effect of those thousands of doors we’ve knocked on? Has our carpool canvassing made a difference? 

We will see on the evening of November 4. And we will continue to let our Democratic neighbors know and feel our catchphrase, out here in the red suburbs: “You are not alone.”

Jennifer Lorenz is the founder and president of the Cypress-Tomball Democrats.