Stop Blocking the Door

Standing below a dark green awning, I face the looming doorway with my sister and take a deep breath. She nods at me and strikes up a conversation as we begin to walk towards the building. My eyes dart around nervously, immediately landing on the doorman sitting just ten feet from where we entered. 

Relax, you’re not doing anything wrong. I comfort myself. You have every right to be here. Just stay calm, keep talking, and hope he doesn’t interrupt.

But these hopes are soon shattered. Just as we turn the corner, about to reach the elevators leading to the upper residential floors, the doorman shouts across the room, “Hey! Who are you two?”

I look at my sister with dread as she confidently answers, “We’re canvassers, here to discuss the upcoming election for State Assembly.”

Two minutes later, we are dejectedly walking out of the building, crossing 30 tenant names off of our canvassing list.

This experience isn’t an isolated event. In fact, buildings manned by doormen are significantly more difficult to canvass in than their non-manned counterparts, largely because most doormen feel obligated to turn canvassers away at the door, despite the practice being entirely legal.

What makes this discrepancy especially consequential, though, is that almost all grassroots campaigns depend on door-to-door outreach as one of the most effective and economical tools afforded to them in reaching political success. It’s often the only way they can compete with billionaire-funded candidates and super PAC-backed campaigns while also providing a low-effort, accessible way for residents to stay informed about local politics. Having abundant, on-hand canvassing keeps people in the loop with what is going on in the political sphere around them without the need for excessive effort.

As a matter of fact, a study published by ResearchGate found that voter turnout increases by approximately five percent with every ten percent increase in local canvassing intensity, showing the impact that simple discussion and discourse can have on voter activity. Similarly, Mayor Zohran Mamdani credited much of his historic win against billionaire-backed Andrew Cuomo to the “unstoppable force” of the more than 100,000 canvassers that had doorknocked for him, demonstrating the extent to which canvassing made a difference for his grassroots campaign. Yet, despite the clearly positive outcomes society has seen come from canvassing, issues like hostile doormen and unwelcoming tenants persist.

This aversion to canvassers raises the broader question of why society seems to have cultivated an epidemic of indifference to local policymaking. Indeed, the Charles H. Revson Foundation found that in 2021, only 23 percent of registered voters even cast ballots in the NYC mayoral primary. It also found that, over the course of ten years, only three percent of registered voters participated in all elections they were eligible for, a pattern reflective of the deep-seated public cynicism regarding the influence of local politics on the country. Most Americans are conditioned to view political power as a top-down hierarchy, where the most important decisions happen only at the federal level, when, realistically, local change is what sets the precedent for national change.

To see this disregard in action, look to a recent example—Mamdani is only one of thousands of mayors in the country, yet has been consistently singled out by President Trump for his unprecedented win and liberal beliefs. News outlets have also expressed that his victory gives them faith in America’s ability to “still be a land of opportunity,” reinforcing the narrative that his influence stretches nationally. Despite holding a city-level position, Mamdani’s increasing popularity across the country has shown the true extent of his political impact.

Unfortunately, voters are still far more likely to perk up at the discussion of Trump’s military decisions than a city council candidate running on a platform of improving the local sanitation department. This indifference to local politics, while partially fueled by the aforementioned top-down mentality, is mostly a product of the fact that voters tend to have a skewed understanding of how political decisions influence them. By sidelining local issues that directly affect them in favor of national ones that tend to be less impactful and less likely to occur in the first place, voters often overlook policies that directly affect their daily lives. This oversight contributes to a cycle where local officials and issues are neglected, making it more difficult to create impactful change at a smaller scale. This isn’t to say that national issues are unimportant to the average voter, but that focusing on them exclusively is an unsustainable political philosophy.

The most robust solution to the disregard for local politics comes from increasing discourse. The only way to get people more involved and interested is to continue making localized information more easily accessible by canvassing. It’s only reasonable, then, to make canvassing safer and simpler for volunteers. To start, we should eliminate one of the biggest obstacles currently standing in their way: doormen turning back canvassers.

Requiring doormen to welcome all canvassers into the buildings they’re paid to keep safe on a daily basis is unrealistic, but there are more pragmatic ways of solving this issue. For example, setting up a federally-enabled system where certain campaigns can receive permits with specifications for where and when they can canvass has the potential to empower the grassroots campaigns of local politics. This could even involve running brief background checks and delineating particular times certain buildings are open to doorknocking, which would overall work to smooth the process for canvassers and make every party involved feel safer. 

Canvassing is the heart of local policy. If we close our doors to canvassers, we close our doors to change.