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In a bid to maximize its grassroots effort in North Carolina and elsewhere, President Barack Obama’s campaign plans to unveil a new smartphone app Tuesday that will offer localized information on everything from where supporters can volunteer and vote to how they can donate money and report abuses by poll workers on Election Day.
The app – available Tuesday for iPhones and in coming days for Android devices – will also give supporters information about how to register voters. And it’ll include maps to find local Obama campaign events and phone banks and will allow volunteers to canvass their neighborhood directly from the app.
“We designed our new app to help break down the distinction between online and offline organizing,” Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter said in a statement. “(This) gives every supporter the same opportunities to get involved that they would find in a field office.”
In 2008, the Obama campaign’s ground game, including its voter registration drives and get-out-the-vote efforts with African-Americans and young people, were cited as the reason for his narrow win in North Carolina – a state that last voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in 1976.
The campaign has never left the state, where most polls put Obama neck-and-neck with presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney. Obama’s campaign has opened more than 15 field offices in North Carolina, and is also heavily investing in grassroots organizing in other states.
Republican “victory offices” boosting Romney’s candidacy and accommodating volunteers have begun opening in North Carolina. And a Young Republican group recently spent a weekend in Charlotte registering voters.
But it’s the air war – as in TV ads – not the ground war that is expected to be the strong suit this fall for the Romney campaign, aided by well-heeled super PACs.
The Obama smartphone app will also be used to spread the Obama message to voters: It will offer a state-by-state rundown on how they’re affected by various issues and what the president’s record is on each, the campaign said.
The app features are built to sync with Facebook, Twitter, email and SMS.
Supporters can download the app at www.barackobama.com/app.
