Local Listeners is the most aggressive voter engagement and volunteer training program by the DNC to start a midterm year

New program targets voters who voted in 2020 but did not vote in 2024

Today, the DNC launched Local Listeners, a new voter contact program to engage over one million infrequent voters across key, battleground congressional districts and states during the first quarter of 2026. Local Listeners represents the DNC’s most aggressive voter engagement effort at the start of a midterm year and modernizes how Democrats are talking to voters. 

The program is focused on reaching infrequent voters early in the cycle with a ‘listening first’ approach. All volunteers will participate in a seven-week training program on how to better connect with voters, with sessions focused on ‘active listening’ and ‘having difficult conversations about politics.’ Volunteers will also be trained on how to capture qualitative information from their conversations with voters, which will allow the DNC to identify key themes and share those insights with the DCCC to inform their messaging on the ground in target congressional districts.

As part of Local Listeners, the DNC is ramping up its early, in-person presence in communities across the country, including by hosting the first National Voter Registration Week of Action of the year in March, state-party led events, and grassroots organizing and service events hosted by local democratic chapters and clubs, giving organizers the ability to engage voters face-to-face far before Election Day.

More than 2,000 volunteers have already signed up for this new program, with 93% volunteering for the first time since 2024, demonstrating renewed grassroots energy for the Democratic Party.

Local Listeners will engage over 1 million likely Democratic supporters who voted in 2020, but sat out in 2024, in key battleground districts by: 

• Conducting more than 250,000 phone conversations with infrequent voters in battleground congressional districts.
• Hosting more than 50 in-person grassroots events across the country. 
• Registering thousands of new voters in priority congressional districts before most coordinated campaigns have even hit the ground.

DNC Chair Ken Martin released the following statement: 

“Local Listeners is a massive voter contact operation built on a simple but powerful idea: If we want to keep earning back the trust and support of voters, we have to listen to them. This program modernizes the way we are talking to and hearing from the voters that we need to win elections now and for years to come. The Democratic Party is done with waiting until the last minute to engage voters — these conversations need to happen early and often. And the win-win with this program is that we’re also training thousands of volunteers to be voices for our Party on the frontlines of their communities. While Republicans ignore Americans, preferring to serve billionaires instead of everybody else, Democrats aim to reach over a million voters in the next few months. And we’re going to talk about what matters in their lives: affordability, freedom, a shot at the American Dream. That’s how we win in 2026 and beyond.”

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