Undated Stark campaign button shows defeated Congressman's history. (Mpls55408: Flickr)

Twenty-term incumbent Pete Stark lost his re-election bid to Alameda County prosecutor and Dublin city councilman Eric Swalwell — who won with 53 percent of the vote.

It had been a bitterly fought campaign, with sometimes strange allegations from Stark. As KQED’s Cy Musiker reported, “Stark accused Swalwell, without evidence, of taking bribes; he was forced to apologize; and he wrongly accused newspaper columnist Debra Saunders of making political donations to Swalwell, again apologizing after.”

Stark issued a statement this morning:

It has been my honor to serve the people of the East Bay for the last 40 years. I have worked hard to deliver results: accomplishments like writing the COBRA law to make health insurance portable between jobs, bringing the first computers to schools, and crafting President Obama’s groundbreaking health care law.

I went to Washington by running against an unpopular war and for women’s rights, opportunity for children and dignity for seniors. I leave knowing that the landscape has changed, but the needs of my constituents remain.

I congratulate Mr. Swalwell on his victory. I am happy to be of assistance in the future.

I want to thank all the wonderful people I met along this fabulous journey and I will remember them fondly. Together, we have made a real difference

Listen to the audio version of this story

As election day inches closer, campaign workers are entering high gear with door-knocking and phone-banking. This year, they’re also reducing paper cuts by using new digital technologies to reach voters. But the true value of the latest election apps, of course, will turn on whether they get out the vote.

East Bay congressional candidate Eric Swalwell, whose campaign is using the latest get-out-the-vote-technology. Photo: Cy Musiker/KQED

Door Knocking Goes Digital

Ariel Kelley, a local campaign director with a group working for San Francisco supervisorial candidate David Lee, is sipping coffee at a neighborhood cafe in the city’s Richmond district. Tapping the floor with her 3-inch heels, Kelley watches her door-knocking team from a website on her MacBook.

“I get to see in real time exactly where they are, using the GPS on the cell phone that they’re holding. This is Charlie’s territory right here,” she says, referring to a volunteer out in the field.

Kelley is monitoring Charlie’s every move on Anza and Balboa. She sees the name, age and party of the targeted voter, plus the exact time – down to the microsecond – of the visit. Kelley sees the encounter is over when a green dot turns into a red check mark.

She clicks over to a spreadsheet logging ballot measures and candidates.

“It basically says which member of my team talked to which specific voter, how that voter is feeling about our candidate, and…answers to a survey that we’re asking them to do.”

Kelley says the digital door-knocking app helps her react quicker.

“So if we’re seeing people all of a sudden aren’t supporting our candidate, or there’s a strong feeling about a particular issue, we can then adapt based on that information.”

Candidates can lose just because their canvassers don’t have time to tally paper logs, says Kelley.

Nicco Mele is a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School. Mele says mobile technology is revamping the election toolkit.

“If I was going to be radical, I’d say that polling is eventually going to disappear cause you’re simply not going to need to sample anymore. You’ll have such immediate house-by-house data based on digital reporting.

2012 Cottage Industry

Ralph Garvin, a Stanford-trained computer scientist, is part of a cottage industry in San Francisco that has arisen in response to the 2012 election cycle. “Kind of funny, huh, that when you save people hundreds of hours of work, that has dollar value associated with it.”

Garvin’s start-up, called Organizer, and others like Votizen, have raised millions from venture capitalists by pitching the idea that micro-messaging might one day overtake mass media.

“You can go to the door and show someone a video that is tailored to that person’s demographic. The more I can send a message to you, that is about you, the higher chance I have of resonating with people that care about the issues that I care about.”

In the name of marketing, the 2012 campaigns are testing the limits of privacy. Presidential candidates are mining vacation histories and mortgage payments, just so their campaign workers can get really personal.

Harvard professor Mele says elections are a time to experiment.

“Just like Kennedy put on makeup to go on television to debate Richard Nixon and had a real impact, the candidates and the party that figures out how to use social media and emerging technologies to their advantage will win.”

The New Guy

Eric Swalwell is standing at a doorway in Pleasanton, which his iPhone app told him to visit.

“Hi, I’m Eric Swalwell, I’m running for the U.S. Congress. And running against 40-year incumbent Pete Stark.”

The 31-year-old candidate is among a growing minority of new politicians nationwide who are using technology to try to take down better-known opponents.

“I think Congress is broken and you deserve new energy and ideas…” says Swalwell.

“Hopefully, if you get in, you’ll continue doing what you say you’re gonna do, which most of them don’t do,” says his targeted voter.

When they’re done, Swalwell logs the elderly male as a “yes” on his phone and heads to the next address, where nobody’s home.

“We can track the higher performing voters, but not to tell us if they’re home,” says Swalwell. “That would be nice. A little intrusive, but nice.”

Swalwell has also purchased a Facebook app tailored to promote his candidacy by volunteers.

David Bruns of Castro Valley logs in to share a Swalwell article on his wall. The app rewards him for every personalized message he posts.

“As you progress through here, it gives you points,” Bruns says, showing me the app.

I asked him if he really cared how many points he earned.

“I don’t want to be last. Somebody else that was on here was Otto,” he says, citing the Swalwell campaign’s leading points earner. “[He] had 2,000, or something along those lines.”

I point out that Otto actually has around 7,000 points.

“I have a lot to do, I guess,” says Bruns.

According to social media research published in the journal Nature, Facebook messages were tied to 280,000 additional votes cast in 2010. Bruns says this new tool will empower him to evangelize for Swalwell on a whole new level.

“As the kind of underdog in the race, he doesn’t have as much name recognition. He hasn’t been in the Congress for 40 years. And so I can put a little bit of that trust that my friends have with me into them with Eric, even though they don’t have a relationship with Eric necessarily like I do.”

Of course, Bruns won’t know until November 6th just how many friends he’s converted.

Twenty-term incumbent Pete Stark has a well developed get-out-the-vote operation, but his opponent, Eric Swalwell, is capitalizing on Stark's reported negative attributes. (Photo: Cy Musiker)

Pete Stark has specialized in health care during much of his 40 years in Congress. He’s helped pass some of the nation’s most far-reaching laws in that area, including the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare” to some); a law that says emergency rooms are required to admit patients who can’t pay; and COBRA, which lets workers and their families temporarily remain covered under an employer’s health plan even after leaving their job.

Stark says he considers himself a health care “expert.”

“But there’s lots to be done,” he adds. “I would like to work until we see that every resident of the United States has access to health care regardless of their income or health status.”

In a normal year, voters would probably have granted him yet another term to do that work. But in this election cycle, he has to fight to be re-elected because of the state’s “Top Two” primary system and newly drawn congressional districts that have changed business as usual.

Instead, he faces another Democrat, Eric Swalwell, an ambitious novice who is an Alameda County prosecutor and Dublin city councilman. Swalwell finished just six points behind Stark in the June primary, 42-36 percent.

“In a Democrat vs. Democrat race,” says Jack Pitney, who teaches political science at Claremont McKenna Colleges, “there’s a very reasonable chance he could end up out of Congress.”

Pitney notes Stark has a number of strikes against him. First, more than half of this redrawn district is new to Stark. In addition, Pitney says Stark has squandered the power of incumbency — and the political clout that usually brings — by antagonizing Democrats and Republicans alike with nasty personal attacks.

“He’s among the most despised members of Congress,” Pitney says.

Stark’s Democratic colleagues even passed him over a few years ago when he was in line to become chair of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, “a stunning, stunning rebuke,” according to Pitney.

Stark’s crankiness is well known to some Bay Area business leaders. Carl Guardino heads San Jose’s Silicon Valley Leadership Group, a trade association. He says he sent a group of start-up CEOs to meet with Stark in Washington a few years ago.

“He came in cursing, yelling, saying profanity to these people,” Guardino recalls. “Obviously the meeting didn’t last long, and it was completely unproductive. Whether you agree with people on policy or not, we need to treat each other with respect. Constituents deserve that; the American public deserves that.”

When asked about that incident, Stark said he didn’t recall it. “If I was short with them, I certainly apologize,” he says. “I do tend to find that people who oppose helping children and helping provide medical care to the poor — I tend to, I guess, not like them.”

But there have been other slip-ups during the campaign that have some wondering if Stark, 80, is still up to the job. Two examples: Stark accused Swalwell, without evidence, of taking bribes; he was forced to  apologized; and he wrongly accused newspaper columnist Debra Saunders of making political donations to Swalwell, again apologizing after.

Here’s the video of Stark, during a debate, accusing Swalwell of taking bribes, then being admonished by the moderator:

Here’s the video of Stark accusing Saunders in front of the San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial board:

Such incidents have energized the campaign of his 31-year-old challenger.

While Stark spent most of the summer working in Washington, Eric Swalwell has been campaigning hard. He’s knocked on thousands of doors in neighborhoods across Alameda County. On one day in September, he was in San Ramon, a suburb of big houses and cul-de-sacs east of Oakland.

At home after home, he introduced himself, reminding potential voters of his name and why he’s running.

“It kind of upsets me that you have all this voting where all the Republicans vote on one side,” Fitzmaurice told Swalwell, “and all the Democrats vote on the other. I thought they were there to represent the people, and sometimes that aggravates me.”

Swalwell wrapped up the campaign day at a house party 10 miles away in Castro Valley, where he addressed a cheering crowd.

“I’m running because I know this area well,” he told supporters. “I want to see nothing but the best for the area where I grew up, and I believe that the person I’m running against is at the root of the problem in Congress.”

Swalwell says Stark is among the most partisan members of Congress. He argues that Stark has lost touch with his district. Stark’s wife and young children are settled in Maryland. Stark comes home to the district for town halls but less often than some of his Bay Area colleagues, Swalwell says.

At the house party, Teresa Branaugh says Swalwell won her over. Still, I asked why she’d trade a veteran lawmaker for someone who hasn’t even finished his first term on the city council.

Swalwell has a strong grassroots campaign, but Stark has had 40 years to build his political network. The result is name recognition — and the loyalty of many in the district, including Hayward Mayor Mike Sweeney.

Sweeney and others dismiss Stark’s flaring temper as a minor flaw in someone who is a champion of average people needing a voice in Washington.

“Whether it’s getting money for local communities like Hayward to hire more police officers,” Sweeney says, “or helping us start after-school tutoring programs through our library — or standing up to special interests that want to undo Social Security or eliminate Medicare, he’s there, and he’s in touch, and he’s fighting the right fights for us.”

Stark’s incumbency also brings benefits like endorsements from congressional colleagues, President Obama, and most labor unions — plus a powerful get-out-the-vote operation.

In the past, when Stark was running against a Republican, assets like these were always more than enough to put him over the top. But against a fellow liberal like Swalwell, Stark will have to prove he’s still the best Democrat for the job.

Listen to Cy Musiker’s story: