Eliza Collins

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Bill Nelson, D-Fla., aren’t up for re-election for another year and a half, but if you live in either of their states you might be getting a knock on your door soon. Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion organization, has already begun canvassing for the 2018 midterm elections.

“We are communicating about issues that really matter intensely to people, when they’re not being barraged by a lot of other information and conversations related to an election,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of SBA List, told USA TODAY. “These conversations that are door-to-door kind of remind people to be thinking about it, focusing on their sitting senator what he is doing at the moment to represent or not represent them.”

“It is indeed communication that will later translate into votes, but right now … it’s time to kind of discern what people are thinking,” Dannenfelser said.

SBA List is targeting voters who are against abortion or tend to lean that way, but may not turn out to vote for a midterm election. Activists' goal is to get these people engaged on the issue now so they’ll go to the polls in 2018. Canvassers, all of whom are paid, will knock on doors of people who are pre-selected based on data.

“We’re getting an early start, we hit the ground running July 1st with the canvassing team,” said Michelle Ashley, the Southwest Ohio field director for SBA List. “It’s amazing though, because we're getting a lot of good of feedback.”

The script that activists use focuses on abortions after five months of pregnancy and using taxpayer funds to pay for abortions, because both issues poll well, according to Dannenfelser.

It is currently illegal to use taxpayer funds for abortions because of the Hyde Amendment, language that bars federal funding for abortions with very rare exceptions. However, organizations that perform abortions — such as Planned Parenthood — can be reimbursed for other services through Medicaid. Critics argue that any funds going to organizations that perform abortions — even if they aren’t to pay for the abortions themselves — could be better spent on community health centers.

Ashley was one of more than 700 people who canvassed for SBA List across four states in 2016. Canvassers knocked on 1.6 million doors during the 2016 election cycle and plan to hit 2 million by the election day in 2018, according to SBA List spokeswoman Mallory Quigley. Quigley said that the organization will be spending a total of $12 million by the time 2018 is over. Already SBA List has 32 canvassers in Florida and 15 in Ohio, with plans to expand.

“After I did this for the last election cycle I became convinced that going door-to-door was really, really effective,” Ashley said.

Austin Jimenez spends 10-15 hours a week door-knocking in Florida, focusing on Nelson, who was first elected to the Senate in 2000.

Jimenez said he tells people he’s out there a year and a half before the election because “Nelson is a bigger challenge because he’s running for re-election, so I think Susan B. Anthony is stepping up the game for the simple fact that we’re going against an incumbent senator.”

“Right now, Sen. Nelson is focused on one thing: that’s doing his job representing the people of Florida,” Nelson’s campaign spokesman, Ryan Brown, told USA TODAY.

In Ohio, Brown’s spokesman shrugged off the news. Preston Maddock’s response: get in line.

“There’s a constellation of groups that are popping up on the right side to take Sherrod down, and they know that he is formidable and to flip this seat they’re going to have to spend a lot of money and get started early,” Maddock told USA TODAY. He dismissed the idea that voters were learning new things about the Ohio senator who has been in office for more than a decade.

“Sherrod’s position on defending women’s health care decisions is well-known,” Maddock said.

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