When the debates, press conferences, and stump speeches wind down, the only thing that matters is whether voters go out and pull the lever for your candidate.

“Where you win and lose elections in the margins, which is where we are right now, is with your voter-contact program,” says Mike Grissom, statewide field director for Bill McCollum. After months of negative campaign ads and in the face of vacillating polls, this fact — and the 500 volunteers knocking on doors and making phone calls on the campaign’s behalf — gives McCollum’s staff confidence about victory in Florida’s GOP gubernatorial primary.

“We have good, true grassroots organizations and volunteers in every county in the state,” McCollum says. “We have an effort ongoing, and have for some time, to call people, call Republican voters, especially likely Republican voters, first to tell them about me, then to see if they’re supportive, and then to turn them out to vote.”

It used to be a sprint. The GOP’s 72-hour program, for example, so named for its goal of contacting voters in the three days leading up to the election, was cited as a success nationally in Republican victories at the beginning of the decade. But because of the new early-voting rules Florida implemented in 2002, these days it’s more of a marathon. Polls for the August 24 primary opened on August 9, and more Floridians than ever are taking advantage of the opportunity. McCollum’s campaign expects that up to 40 percent of its votes will be cast before Election Day.

“That number has been blown out of the water this year,” Grissom says. “Traditionally, it’s around 30 percent.”