WASHINGTON — (AP) — When Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race and Kamala Harris jumped in, a cascade of Zoom meetings with hundreds of thousands of participants popped up seemingly out of nowhere and helped propel her to the Democratic nomination.
Now organizers are trying to turn that burst of digital enthusiasm into traditional get-out-the-vote efforts like phone banking and door knocking. They’ve created a loose constellation of volunteer networks operating independently of the Harris campaign, all geared toward marshaling local or online communities behind the vice president.
People are sending postcards, texting friends, canvassing battleground states, making friendship bracelets with campaign messages, and sometimes surprising themselves by getting involved in ways they’ve never done before.
The question is whether the Zoom meetings that drew so much attention during the summer — for Black women, Black men, white women, white dudes, cat ladies, Taylor Swift fans and more — will …