MDP Help Desk

August 12th, 2024 - MI VAN Update Email

Hi Michigan VAN Users!

It's been an exciting election season so far! Everyone deserves a hearty congratulations for the work we’ve been able to get done. Ahead of us are a long three months, so it's time to strap in for November! To that end, we have some updates from the Data Team we wanted to flag for you and some tools and resources at your disposal.

Post-Primary Updates to Committees:

With the primary finished, we are going to start updating committees in Votebuilder. For candidates who are not advancing to the general election, we will be shutting down your committees on August 19th. Make sure you finalize any necessary tasks before that date. For candidates moving on to the general election, we’ll be archiving your primary election question.

All General Support Questions will be provided by the end of day Tuesday, August 13th. If you won your primary but don’t have a general survey question by Wednesday, August 14th, send us an email at van@michigandems.com. Remember to add the General Support Question to your scripts once you have it.

We expect vote history of the August 6th primary election to appear in the September 1st Voter File. Once we receive the Voter File from the Secretary of State, it will take between 1-2 weeks before the changes are visible in VAN.

Scores:

I wanted to take a moment to remind you all of the scores we have available:

2024 DNC Dem Party Support: The likelihood that a voter will choose Democrats over Republicans in a head to head race. This Score is not a measure of strength, but rather of voting propensity. Someone with a Score of 30 might be more liberal than someone with a score of 80!

2024 Turnout - Targeting: The likelihood that a voter will vote in an election.

Clarity Choice Support: The likelihood a voter supports a woman’s right to choose

2024 Turnout - Education: The likelihood a voter has a bachelor's degree.

Civis Spanish Language Preference: The likelihood a voter prefers the Spanish Language.

2022 DNC Malaise: The likelihood a voter’s approval of President Biden and the Democratic Party has decreased since 2020.

Remember: Scores are predictive models and are best used in aggregate, NOT at the individual level. Scores are great to use when creating lists, especially for ranking voters when you need to adjust the size of your universe based on budget or capacity. However, they are not a reliable tool for evaluating voters at the individual level. If you are trying to use DNC Dem Party Support to find Democrats, you are best served using our Targets.

Support Channels and Resources

We keep a list of all of our available support channels and resources in our knowledge base:
Available Help and Resources. You can also set up a time to meet with us on zoom at calendly.com/mivan.

As always, you can reach out to our team at van@michigandems.com at any time.

All the best,
MDP Data Team

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