One of the questions that Democratic practitioners will seek to answer in the coming months is whether their side’s performance in 2024 was down to inadequacy of their tools or the tactics, or if the Republican sweep at the federal level should be attributed to overall environmental factors.
Now, one of the biggest tech vendors on the left is publishing data that could be used to bolster an argument that the results from this cycle weren’t down to failures of technology or tactics by campaigns on the left. In fact, NGP VAN said in an email to C&E that it saw “record after record shattered” from user engagement in 2024.
Breaking down the data, the company noted that more than 240 million canvassing attempts were logged on its platform this cycle, compared to just over 100 million in 2020. That comparison is between a pandemic and non-pandemic cycle, but NGP VAN also pointed to a shift away from paper walk sheets, too, as evidence tech played a greater role in Democratic campaigns in 2024.
To wit, NGP VAN said, “90% of all walk-attempts (canvassing) were logged using MiniVAN, which is a massive jump from the last non-pandemic presidential cycle, where paper was the primary medium, and 47% of walk-attempts (canvassing) were logged using MiniVAN.”
The company added: “We saw more than 674,000 MiniVAN users this cycle compared to just under 500,000 in 2020. These are folks who logged in to record their canvassing attempts.”
