How Democrats Are Retaining Volunteers in 2026

The Democrats’ House campaign arm just hit an organizing milestone. Volunteer retention might have something to do with it. 

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s organizing department has knocked some 2 million doors across 61 House districts since the late spring, according to figures shared with Campaigns & Elections. The first million came between May 29 and early September, while volunteer canvassers racked up a second million doors in the last month alone. 

Of course, there are some predictable reasons driving the canvassing blitz. Democratic campaign workers, organizers and voters see the party on the cusp of recapturing control of the House in November and have responded with an aggressive push to shore up and expand the House map in the runup to Election Day.

And DCCC organizers also repeatedly argued that a combination of candidate quality and deep frustration with the Trump administration has played an outsized role in motivating volunteers.

But DCCC officials also attribute some of that success to an effort to better prepare – and retain – an army of volunteers. The committee launched its “Field Margin” program in May with the goal of providing a more comprehensive training for volunteers on everything from door knocking and phone banking to digital organizing.

The idea, according to DCCC staff, is that by engaging earlier and more proactively with supporters through training sessions and coaching, those volunteers are more likely to keep coming back.

“People can come once and then say they gave it a try. They did their part,” said Sydney Magno, the DCCC’s organizing director in Iowa’s 3rd District, where Democrat Sarah Trone Garriott is challenging Rep. Zach Nunn (R-Iowa). “But something we’re seeing now is that preparedness is really making our volunteers more comfortable before they go out to knock doors.” 

“Working on those relationships between our staff, neighborhood groups and our volunteers is really important to building their skills and making them feel more comfortable,” she added. 

Volunteer attrition has long been a persistent and, at times, frustrating challenge for campaigns and committees. After all, the work is hard. Volunteer canvassers spend hours walking through neighborhoods, often in difficult weather, knocking on doors with the goal of talking to as many people as possible about a candidate or cause. And there’s no guarantee that the person answering the door is going to be receptive. “It’s scary” when people are first getting started, Magno acknowledged.

So far, in Iowa’s 3rd District alone, DCCC volunteers have knocked on about 145,000 doors, making it the second best-performing district for the committee in the country after Michigan’s 7th District, a toss-up seat held by incumbent Rep. Tom Barrett (R-Mich.), where DCCC organizers say they’ve hit 158,000 doors.

Also topping the list: Colorado 8th District (105,000 doors), New York’s 17th (101,000) and New Jersey’s 7th (96,000), according to the DCCC. Overall, some 15,000 unique volunteers have hit the ground in the committee’s targeted districts in 2026. That’s in no small part because “the DCCC invested early in ensuring battleground districts had the infrastructure to not only effectively train grassroots volunteers, but keep them coming back week after week,” DCCC Deputy Communications Director Nebeyatt Betre said in a statement.

Meanwhile, in Ohio’s 9th District, where Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) is defending her seat after the GOP-controlled state legislature redrew the lines last year, DCCC Organizing Director Jared Sherman said that the volunteer retention efforts have made a huge difference. 

Sherman said that DCCC volunteers have knocked on about 33,000 doors in the district this cycle – about three times more than in 2024 and around five times more than in 2022. 

“The biggest difference we’re seeing this cycle is not only do we have more volunteers coming out, but we have volunteers coming back,” Sherman told C&E. “Being able to retain them and keep them coming back in — everybody recognizes the importance of the moment.”