TDP VAN Targeting Scores (txdem.co/tdp-scores)
Overall targeting guidance for County Party Coordinated Campaigns, Partner Organizations, and all Campaigns
Overview of Scores in VAN
This document is intended to complement the TDP Targets document, providing insight into each of the scores available in VAN as well as each of the scores used to generate our targets. These scores are loaded into VAN from Democratic organizations such as the TDP and the DNC, as well as through DNC-contracted progressive vendors such as Civis and Clarity.
Don’t know how to use a score to cut a list or phone bank? Check out our list cutting document or our VAN FAQ.
Need additional help? File a VAN Help ticket.
2024: Civis Spanish Language Preference 4
Partisanship Scores
The goal of Partisanship scores is to determine “if this person votes, will they vote for Democrats?” Higher scores indicate higher likelihood to support Democrats.
However, higher scores do NOT mean somebody is more “progressive”: voters with high scores tend to be consistent Democratic voters, but that does not necessarily mean they support very progressive policies or candidates.
Some examples of how to interpret scores
Most voters with scores in the 90s are not necessarily highly progressive from a policy or candidate support perspective. They tend to be folks with numerous positive IDs from campaigns and consistent histories of Democratic primary voting.
Folks with scores in the 40-60 range should NOT be interpreted as persuadable voters or ideological moderates. They are simply folks for whom the model is uncertain about their true underlying partisanship.
Green Party supporters may be more likely to have scores in the 50-65 range than the 80-95 range. The inverse is true for those who identify as libertarians: they may be more likely to be in the 35-50 range than the 5-20 range. In both cases, this is because the score reflects the likelihood of supporting one major party or the other.
TDP Partisanship
An updated TDP score is on the way! Please check back for more information on that model soon.
2024: DNC Dem Party Support
Blurb from the DNC About Their Score:
The DNC Democratic Party Support Score predicts the probability that a registered voter supports Democrats over Republicans in head-to-head settings.
The scores are 2-way probabilities between 0 and 100, where scores near 1 denote confidence in Democratic support and scores near 0 denote confidence in Republican support. For example, out of 100 voters with a score of 64, we expect about 64 of them to support Democrats over Republicans.
Note that this score does not predict a voter's intensity of support, persuadability, or likelihood of identifying as independent.
Important things to know about the score from the TDP:
While we encourage folks to use the TDP score, validation testing has demonstrated the DNC score comes in a close second to the TDP score and is far better than any other available partisanship scores because it has proven to be more accurate, more updated, and more available than its competitors.
Turnout Scores
We believe folks with low scores (0-30) are likely to turn out in this election if we engage them. We advise including folks with very low turnout scores in your GOTV efforts (as well as folks who did not participate in the primary or run-off elections this year) and general voter engagement strategies and prioritizing them above folks with high turnout scores, who are likely to vote regardless of whether they are engaged by campaigns.
Low turnout scores are not destiny, they are opportunity. Low propensity voters (folks with lower scores) are likely to make the difference between whether we flip Texas
We tend to advise using turnout scores rather than previous election voting history custom filters, as these scores are designed to aggregate all past voting behavior, whereas custom logic is more likely to accidentally exclude potential voters. However, using turnout in the 2024 primary and run-off elections does make sense for many purposes.
Clarity Choice Support 2024 Turnout Model
This score predicts the likelihood that a voter supports a woman’s right to choose abortion. The model measures attitudes toward abortion access and does not account for reactions to messaging about the U.S. Supreme Court decision. The model is a probability score meaning a voter with a score of 70 is 70% likely to believe that abortion should be legal. A voter with a mid-range score should not be considered persuadable on the issue of abortion. It should also be noted that the DNC does not recommend contacting voters with a score of lower than 70 with explicit pro-choice messaging.
2024 Targeting Turnout
This score is produced by Clarity Campaign Labs in collaboration with the DNC, and projects the likelihood of someone voting in the general election. This turnout score allows campaigns to rank people by their likelihood of voting to optimize voter contact and electorate predictions. Please keep in mind that this is the probability of turnout in the general election, as a voter’s likelihood of participating in a primary election could be much lower.
Additional Scores
2024: DNC Education Score
This score is generated by the DNC and projects the likelihood of someone having a bachelor’s degree.
2024: Civis Spanish Language Preference
This score projects whether a given voter will prefer to speak in Spanish with volunteers. We have not evaluated the accuracy of this score at this time.
While folks high on this score should likely be contacted by bilingual volunteers where possible, we do not have a particular recommendation whether folks with high scores should be addressed initially in Spanish by bilingual volunteers - we advise that campaigns use their own discretion on this question. It is entirely possible that many folks with high scores do not speak spanish or would prefer to speak english and advise considering this fact.
A score I use regularly is not visible in VAN and is not included in this document. How do I get access to that score?
If there is a score that you believe is valuable to your operation that is not included in this list, please file a VAN Help ticket. We are happy to chat with you about the best way to fulfill the need, including adding a score for your committee.