The goal
Understand first
Don't assume what someone cares about based on party, age, town, or yard signs.
“What issue is having the biggest impact on you or your family right now?”
If they mention property taxes
- Ask: “What do you think is driving the increase?”
- Then: “Have you noticed the increase mostly in the tax rate, your assessment, or the total bill?”
- Listen for: property valuation, school costs, municipal costs, state funding, or uncertainty.
- Remember: a rising assessment does not automatically mean the town is spending proportionally more. The useful question is what happened to the actual tax bill, and why.
If they mention schools or EFAs
- Ask: “What matters most to you: school quality, school choice, what it costs, or something else?”
- Then: “What would you want to know to decide whether the current system is working?”
- Listen for: public-school quality, school choice, property taxes, EFA spending, special education, staffing, or another concern.
- Do not assume someone who supports school choice supports every aspect of the EFA program, or that someone who supports public schools opposes school choice.
If they mention healthcare
- Ask: “What's the biggest problem: premiums, prescriptions, finding a provider, hospital access, or something else?”
- Capture the actual problem. Rural healthcare questions can be very different from national healthcare-policy questions.
If they mention affordability
- Ask: “What's gotten noticeably harder to afford?”
- Listen for: housing, property taxes, electricity/heating, groceries, healthcare, childcare, transportation, insurance, or something else.
- Then: “Has anything government has done actually made that better for you?”
If they make a party-based money claim
- Don't argue. Ask: “How do you measure that?”
- Listen for whether they mean state taxes, property taxes, government spending, household costs, business costs, or something else. Party labels aren't measurements.
If they say “they're all the same”
- Ask: “What would somebody have to actually do differently for you to notice?”
- That's more useful than defending a candidate.
The rule
Ask → Listen → Clarify → Record
After each door
- Town
- Number one concern
- Specific problem mentioned
- What they believe is causing it
- Question we couldn't answer
- Issue worth researching
Don't figure out what argument works on the voter. Figure out what the voter is telling you about the community.