Annie O'Neill, Post-Gazette David Ninehouser, left, Pittsburgh field manager for Working America, is out every evening pushing a get-out-the-vote campaign. Here, he and colleague Kevin Farkas canvas Dormont. Click photo for larger image. Online chart AFL-CIO political activity for midterm elections

Dave Ninehouser is trying to move the country in a new direction. But first, he has to find his way to a dead-end street in Dormont.

Behind the wheel of a brown van, Mr. Ninehouser winds through the South Hills, making a couple of impromptu three-point turns before locating his starting point for a night of political pavement pounding.

Mr. Ninehouser is working on behalf of the AFL-CIO, which is spending $40 million -- a record for a midterm election -- in hopes that the many miles walked by him and thousands of others can manufacture Democratic victories in dozens of high-profile races.

Of the 10 U.S. Senate races that the AFL-CIO is targeting, the contest between Rick Santorum and Bob Casey is one of its highest priorities. And so for the last month, Mr. Ninehouser, 40, has been jumping construction ditches, straightening windblown Halloween decorations and shushing barking dogs in order to get to as many as 100 doors per night.

It's work in the trenches, for which canvassers make about $10 an hour, plus benefits. But for Mr. Ninehouser, of North Huntingdon, it's far more satisfying than his previous jobs, which include stints in nursing homes, construction and asbestos removal.

In 1998, the AFL-CIO was able to reach 3 percent of union members in their homes to urge them to vote in the midterm election, said political director Karen Ackerman. In 2002, that figure was 5 percent. This year, the union political effort is shooting for 8 percent.

Canvassers also are knocking on doors of members of Working America, a relatively new community affiliate of the AFL-CIO made up of nonunion members who agree with union-endorsed political views.

Because he is knocking only on the doors of members, Mr. Ninehouser tends to get a polite reception -- even when he's interrupting dinner. At his first house last Thursday evening, a young teacher eagerly listened and promised to vote.

Mr. Ninehouser walks fast and talks fast on his five-hour nightly routes, wearing a Working America T-shirt and a thermal undershirt with the sleeves pushed up on a night when snow flurries briefly fell. "The maternal types go nuts on me," he said, mimicking them: "'Does your mother know you're out here wearing that?' "

Mr. Ninehouser canvasses with Kevin Farkas, 41, who knocks on doors on one side of the street while Mr. Ninehouser does the other.

The vast majority of the people that he speaks to say they are voting for Mr. Casey (or, as they tend to phrase it, against the Republican incumbent Mr. Santorum). Mr. Farkas, meanwhile, has found a sprinkling of pro-Santorum union voters.

"They think he's strong on the issues," he said, chomping on a lemon cookie that an elementary-school teacher just gave him at her door. "They like that he's resolved."

"Those are the guys who don't ask directions," quipped Mr. Ninehouser, who -- as somebody who describes himself as "directionally challenged" and must drive to a new neighborhood every night -- is not one of those guys.

Despite the low-tech nature of the canvassing process -- knocking on doors and speaking to people one-on-one -- Mr. Ninehouser and Mr. Farkas are equipped with high-tech Palm Pilots.

The devices spell out their route and are programmed with the names and ages of those in the houses they are about to visit. After the canvassers speak to people, they enter their responses into the Palm Pilots, including how strongly they support their preferred candidates and the issue of most concern to them.

That information is used to build a massive AFL-CIO database of voter preferences, which helps the organization decide which information will be most effective to subsets of voters.

"In the states that are the battleground right now, we have 13.4 million registered voters," said AFL-CIO deputy political director Michael Podhorzer. "We can't go to all of their doors, so this enables us to be much more responsive to folks we don't get to see at the door."

The information collected by canvassers also determines the level of follow-up contact from the AFL-CIO to individual households.

Because the teacher that Mr. Ninehouser talked to at his first door is such a strong supporter of Mr. Casey and Gov. Ed Rendell, she might get a mailing on education from the AFL-CIO, but probably won't get a return visit. Those are reserved for the undecideds or for people such as the recent stroke victim who told Mr. Ninehouser that her husband is a reliable voter, but for her it depends on the weather.

Of course, these tactics aren't used by only Democrats: The Republicans pioneered many of the most highly successful door-to-door microtargeting techniques, which cherry-pick the voters most likely to respond to in-person interventions.

"If you're an 80 percent probability voter, they're all over you, because they know sometimes you're not going to show," said Daron R. Shaw, an associate professor at the University of Texas. "If you're eight for eight in your last elections, a disciplined targeting plan wouldn't talk to you."

The Republican effort, which is credited with helping to produce favorable GOP returns in 2002, relies exclusively on volunteers, said Scott Migli, executive director of the Pennsylvania Republican Party. With the heaviest door-to-door activity on Saturdays, the GOP has visited about 200,000 Pennsylvanians since February, Mr. Migli said.

The AFL-CIO started its political get-out-the-vote efforts on Sept. 18 in the Pittsburgh area, but even before that date, Mr. Ninehouser had been a full-time canvasser. In the past year, Working America signed up its 330,000 members in Pennsylvania largely through door-to-door contact.

The job helps connect him to his great-uncles, he said, who helped organize textile mills in Greensburg after immigrating from Italy, and to his grandfather, who lost fingers in a mill.

He hopes that he'll be able to continue political work even after the election. "If they keep me, I'll stay," he said. "Other than that, I'll go back to the pizza shop for a while."

For now, he's fully immersed in politics. He references global warming while discussing the weather and talks excitedly about a new book criticizing the Bush administration's views on evangelicals. He tries not to look at the polls so that he doesn't get complacent.

With every door that he knocks on, he tries to present the most compelling case possible. To a Volvo mechanic, he says Mr. Casey will protect American jobs; to a 77-year-old woman, he says Mr. Santorum led the fight to privatize Social Security; to anyone skeptical of Mr. Rendell, he says Lynn Swann "seems like a nice guy and all, but he just doesn't have the experience."

And when he leaves, he asks them to spread the word.

"When you go to the polls," he says, handing a flier to every person he talks to, "make sure you take a whole carload with you."