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Omar Sanchez, 23, of Pasco, equipped himself with a backpack, sneakers, a neighborhood map and a voters list.
As a field organizer for the Washington State Democratic Party's Latino Vote Project, that's about all he needed Wednesday to set out on foot to target a key demographic: Latinos who are registered to vote but haven't done so before.
"We're trying to get those people to vote, and it's a pretty big number here in the Tri-City area," Sanchez said.
The state Democratic Party has conducted the Latino Vote Project since 2004. But this year, the party is putting more money into it, and the project is focused on door-to-door contact in the Tri-Cities, Yakima and Seattle.
The effort reflects Democrats' belief in the growing potential for Hispanics to influence elections. The party hopes to maintain inroads with the Hispanic community by targeting the people whose votes may be the most up for grabs: Those who haven't voted before.
"We really want to build a relationship with the voters, especially the Latino voters that maybe aren't very active in the electoral process," said Carlos Lugo, director of the Latino Vote Project.
Neighborhood canvassing is a more effective way to do that than mailers or phone calls, he said.
"And if we have to go to their houses three, four or five times during the course of the election, we really, really want them to vote," Lugo said.
In Pasco, there are more than 2,500 Latinos who haven't voted before but are registered, Sanchez said. Kennewick has 1,500 and Richland has 300.
Sanchez, a student at Washington State University in Pullman, has been working for two months to reach as many of them as he can -- knocking on doors, talking to them in Spanish or English about the Democratic platform and its candidates, and leaving them with bilingual party literature.
On Wednesday afternoon, he set out to reach about 80 houses near Virgie Robinson and Whittier elementary schools.
Buenas tardes! Sanchez called out as he crossed North Wehe Avenue to speak to Jorge Guzman, 66. The two spoke at Guzman's front door in Spanish for a few minutes, Guzman wearing an "I (heart) Jesus" baseball cap.
Guzman said he is undecided in this election, so Sanchez later said he would revisit the residence in another month to check back with him.
Nearby, Sanchez encountered Luis Iniguez, 22, out front watering the lawn.
Sanchez had been looking for Iniguez's father, a registered voter. Iniguez isn't registered to vote yet, but said he planned to vote for his first time in this election.
He planned to vote Democratic, Iniguez said.
"To support our Latino community," he said.
Sanchez gave Iniguez a voter registration form to fill out and turn in by Oct. 4, the deadline for registering for this election.
Per the Latino Vote Project's guidelines, Sanchez only knocks on doors where registered voters are known to live. If the person home isn't the person on his list, he usually just thanks them and moves on rather than engage someone who might not be eligible to vote.
"The people (whose door) we're not supposed to knock on -- we don't want to get them voting who are not even eligible," Sanchez said.
There's a slight irony in that for Sanchez, because he himself isn't eligible to vote. But he recently sent in his naturalization paperwork and hopes to become a U.S. citizen in time to vote in this election, he said.
But if it doesn't happen this time, he'll look forward to getting to vote someday down the line, he said.
"I live here. All the decisions our leaders make affect me," Sanchez said. "Every single decision. So that's why I want to vote."
