- By Natalia Gurevich | Examiner staff writer | |
- Sep 16, 2024 Updated 14 hrs ago (SFExaminer.com)
Several times a week for the next two months, dozens of San Francisco volunteers will descend upon a former Nordstrom Rack in Union Square to make phone calls, strategize and lend their support to Kamala Harris’ presidential run and other down-ballot Democratic candidates.
“There’s a lot of energy behind our efforts at headquarters because of the presidential campaign and Kamala being one of our own — we have created a space for volunteers who want to support our local, state and federal endorsed candidates and campaigns,” said Carrie Barnes, a vice chair of the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee. in a statement to The Examiner. “It’s also important for us to lay the groundwork for a democratic majority in congress so that when Kamala wins she can advance a democratic agenda.”
The San Francisco Democratic Party opened its new local headquarters at 901 Market St. last week to coincide with the first presidential debate since Harris announced her run over the summer. Barnes said the decision was not premeditated, but “worked out perfectly” in terms of timing.
Even before they opened, Barnes said people had come knocking, asking what they could do to help during such a critical election year, particularly after Harris entered the run.
“All eyes are on San Francisco because Kamala is from here — we have a female presidential nominee, we also have a female mayor who’s up for reelection,” said Barnes in an interview with The Examiner on Friday. “This is a beautiful moment in time where it really feels like women’s equality is on the ballot.”
The local party has endorsed both the Harris-Tim Walz ticket and incumbent Mayor London Breed, as well as all but two of The City’s ballot propositions this fall. Volunteers phone-bank from Market Street on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. They said their reasons were different but shared a common purpose.
“This is history right now,” said Kimberley Rodler, who took the ferry over to San Francisco from San Rafael on Friday afternoon to phone-bank for Harris along with a handful of other volunteers tasked with calling registered voters in Georgia.
The current headquarters is just a block or so from where Rodler recalled volunteering for future President Barack Obama. She said Harris arrived at the office and “sat across from me for an hour.”
“I didn’t know who she was, but I knew she was someone exceptional,” Rodler said. “Very real, brilliant, warm, caring, in contrast to … things my mother taught me not to say.”
Almost every volunteer on Friday told The Examiner that they were motivated to phone-bank in support of Harris due to their concerns over former President Donald Trump winning the November election.
“Everything in that Project 2025, everything they want to do if Trump is elected,” said Bob Timlin, a SoMa resident who after being recently laid off decided to spend his free time devoted to the campaign, of why he wanted to volunteer. “I would not want him anywhere near the nuclear codes.”
Timlin, who said he volunteered during Obama’s 2008 and 2012 runs, as well as Hilary Clinton’s presidential pursuit in 2016, said respondents haven’t been much different than previous years. Avery McGinn, another frequent volunteer, said she noticed a substantial difference in how people have responded picking up the phone since President Joe Biden announced he would not seek reelection.
“There was a really clear shift,” she said. “It was easy, suddenly I didn’t need to convince people of anything, people were offering to volunteer. Usually, that’s a hard ask.”
Susan Pfeifer, the phone-bank captain with the San Francisco Democratic Party and Nancy Pelosi’s campaign who said she volunteered in the previous five presidential elections, said“people are eager to start calling” following the switch atop the ticket.
Volunteers are able to sign up for phone banking through the party’s email links, and the numbers can vary on any given day. There were only about nine volunteers Friday afternoon, but 38 were signed up for Saturday. Pfeiffer said they need “more furniture and infrastructure,” but the party will “probably easily have 100 people here in a couple weeks.”
“San Francisco is volunteer-rich,” she said. “We don’t have to fight to get out the vote for president here.”
Beyond The City’s likely overwhelming support of Harris, Pfeiffer said she hopes San Francisco can play a larger role in the national political conversation.
“We’re at the center of it all,” she said. “How is the rest of the country seeing our stance and seeing San Francisco as a political powerhouse and able to move the needle nationally?”
Volunteers, meanwhile, said they hope they can walk away knowing they tried to make a difference.
“I just don’t have the emotional bandwidth to deal with four more years of [Trump],” said Anna Sojourner, who lives in Civic Center in San Francisco. “If it happens again, I will know I left it all on the field.”
