One Door at a Time

Block Walking

"Good afternoon," she greeted the man. "My name is Letty Garza-Galvan. I am running for Starr County Judge."

Simple. Humble. To the point.

The man took a sticker and a concha from the candidate. He politely nodded his head as she explained her platform.

Political campaigns have become lazy. Somewhere between crafting the perfect Instagram story and tracking TikTok analytics, candidates forgot that voters exist in three dimensions. They have doors. Those doors can be knocked on.

Block walking used to be the foundation of every campaign. A candidate would lace up comfortable shoes and spend hours trudging through neighborhoods. Sweating through dress shirts in August heat. Getting chased by territorial chihuahuas. This wasn't glamorous work, but it won elections.

The Rio Grande Valley perfected this approach decades ago. The Democratic machines that ran Cameron, Hidalgo, Starr, and Duval counties from the 1870s through the mid-twentieth century understood something fundamental: you controlled votes by showing up. Stephen Powers and James B. Wells Jr. established their Cameron County operation during the 1870s and 1880s. Manuel Guerra ran Starr County from 1905 until his death in 1915. Boss rule was corrupt as hell, but it worked because politicians actually talked to people.

Door-to-door canvassing created authentic conversations that social media could never replicate. Campaign teams developed check-in systems and safety protocols. Code words became standard practice.

Block walking forces candidates to answer unscripted questions from actual voters. No curated Instagram comments. No PR team vetting inquiries. Just a resident with concerns and a candidate who either knows their stuff or doesn't. Voters ask about potholes, property taxes, or why their cousin's trash hasn't been picked up, and candidates respond like human beings instead of talking points generators. That unfiltered exchange is exactly why some politicians avoid door-knocking. It requires competence, honesty, and the ability to think on your feet.

Then social media arrived, and campaigns forgot this knowledge. Research from Yale University found that door-to-door canvassing increases voter turnout by approximately six percent—one vote for every 29 dollars spent. Phone banking costs 38 dollars per vote. Digital ads convert at less than one percent. Political digital advertising spending grew 4.6 times from 2018 to 2020. By 2024, federal campaigns allocated 36 percent of their budgets to digital platforms compared to 78 percent in commercial advertising.

Campaigns dump money into Facebook ads that voters scroll past. They hire social media managers who've never knocked on a door. They measure success in likes instead of conversations. The disconnect has never been wider.

People remember when you show up. They remember the candidate who knocked during dinner and still took time to listen. They remember feeling like their vote mattered to someone who bothered to ask for it face-to-face.

That infrastructure is crumbling. The patron-client relationships that sustained Valley political machines for over a century have dissolved. Campaigns spend fortunes on algorithms instead of building face-to-face networks that actually move elections.

Some candidates still get it. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez knocked on 120,000 doors during her 2018 primary against ten-term incumbent Joe Crowley, who outspent her eighteen to one. She combined digital advertising with door-knocking. She won by fifteen points.

Zohran Mamdani mobilized 50,000 volunteers who knocked on over 1.6 million doors during his 2025 New York City mayoral campaign. He defeated Andrew Cuomo twice despite facing more than 40 million dollars in opposition spending. Door-knocking created real conversations while Cuomo relied on expensive television ads.

Block walking still works. Research shows door-to-door campaigning by a candidate increases their vote share by three percentage points and their margin by six percentage points. Candidates who commit to it outperform their social-media-obsessed opponents.

Golden hour descended on the neighborhood as Garza-Galvan continued her route. Dogs barked from behind chain-link fences. She walked through streets she didn't know yet, knocking on doors to meet neighbors who will soon enough decide her future. Another door. Another introduction. Another conversation about what matters to people who live here. She is putting in the work. The votes will come, or they might not. But in that neighborhood, where no one knew who she was this morning, they already know her name as the sun goes down.

@Santitos

@salinasmariasantos

Copyright © 2026 Maria Santos Salinas for FRONTeras.

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