Have often have you had a candidate for office or representatives for a cause come to your house?
For me its only been a couple of times and both times it persuaded me to vote for them.
Sidenote: A person running for office now showed me an app on her phone she used to target houses to go to and those to not go to. Not sure exactly how that is figured out.
The mayor of my small city has come to my door several times over the past few decades during election season.
County Commissioner and Sheriff candidates. Possibly state representative.
Brian
My U.S. Representative doesn’t live in the district he represents, and he doesn’t do town halls or house calls or any other sort of public event where people can ask him questions. A former mayor has been to our house, but not on official business. I think our state representative stopped by our house during a door-to-door campaign. I don’t remember if it was for himself or for Trump, the flyer went right into the wastebasket. He’s in the news for doing the same thing this year, without a mask.
~Max
In my ~30 years as a voter, I once had a long-shot nobody running for city council come to my door. She petted my dog and was cool. She didn’t win.
On the other hand, people taking donations for various causes are like once a month.
I’ve only had it happen once or twice, but then, I’m rarely home in the middle of the day. For all I know they’re ringing my doorbell a dozen times a day but there’s no one around to answer it.
The last time it happened, I was sitting in my garage and by the time I noticed him, he was practically in my driveway. So, I couldn’t exactly walk inside and pretend not to be home (which is what I would have done if he was still down the block when I saw him). He gave me his pitch for a few seconds and must’ve noticed that I was totally uninterested. But then he saw my motorcycle and started asking me questions about it. He seemed genuinely interested in the bike and even though I was talking to him about it as if he was a friend, it was hard not to assume he wasn’t just being patronizing and either hoping to transition back to the election or trying to come off as a ‘man of the people’ by finding a normal/common/mundane thing to talk about with me so that I’d be thinking ‘he seemed like a nice guy’.
Personally, I despise that kind of stuff. Now, I don’t know a better way to get their name/message out there, but I throw out flyers on my door without even looking at them and if I happen to see someone walking up to my house, be it a politician or cable/phone sales person, I’ll wave them off and yell ‘not interested’ though the window. They can ring the doorbell if they want, but they’re not going to get an answer.
I assume, however, that there’s plenty of people that enjoy talking to the local candidates when they do this.
In the 15 years I’ve been in my house, twice that I know of), I’ve had LDS guys show up. The most recent time I got lucky and spotted them at my door from about a half a block away. I pulled over and parked on the side of the road until they were a few houses down.
A couple of weeks ago the Democratic candidate for the Texas House of Representatives for my district knocked on my door. I’m already planning to vote for him, and informed him of this. He did give me a yard sign, which I still have on display.
Not this year (or if they’ve stopped, I don’t open the door, I don’t open the door now for anyone who I don’t know why they’ve stopped). But most years I get State House candidates, City Council and Mayoral candidates, sometimes State Senate or County Commissioner candidates. Probably three or four every late Summer or Fall.
For a number of years, we had a guy that lived across the street who was very active in politics - and very disliked by the people my husband tends to support. So we’d get lawn signs. I once had a candidate stop by asking if we’d take a lawn sign with “we usually wouldn’t target this street - there isn’t enough traffic - but I hear Matt lives across the street and you’ll take a lawn sign.” I took the lawn sign (he moved, I hated that neighbor, while we lived there, we always had three or four lawn signs - it turns out politicians are PETTY and I was happy to oblige).
My Member of Congress holds town halls and public meetings. You can only attend these public meetings if you are a member of her party and you voted for her. Despite the regular public outcry over this, she doesn’t give a rat’s ass. I live in a reddish congressional district of a decidedly blue state.
Hey, that’s better than no meetings.
~Max
Candidates for mayor and state legislature.
One of our former village presidents (essentially, the mayor) came by on door-to-door campaign visits several times. Then again, he lived about six doors down from me, so it wasn’t a long trip for him. 
I live in a large high rise so it’s not uncommon at all for a meet the candidate session to happen in the resident lounge. I can’t imagine them going door to door.
Never. However, it might be our doing. We are the last of three homes on a private road with a sign “PRIVATE ROAD” that scares most people away.
The few times (<1 a year) we have a salesman stop, I take pictures of them and their license plate and file a police report.
Our town has a “no door to door solicitation without a license” and nobody bothers, so the local cops ticket the salesman for the license thing as well as trespassing.
No. I live in a major urban area so, due to population, I wouldn’t expect shoe-leather visits. Also, I live in a gated complex. Nobody gets to my front door unless they are buzzed in.
However, the candidates and representatives do hold town-halls and (now more frequently) calls.
I have also had the opportunity to meet-and-greet many candidates and elected representatives through my spouses work. Once I was invited to a meet-and-greet for a presidential candidate at the home of my child’s girlfriend, but they weren’t from my preferred party so I didn’t want to waste everyone’s time by going.
It happened to me a few times when I lived in NYC. It was a candidate for city council in one case, and a state assembly candidate the other time. I voted for them largely because they showed up and my door and asked me to - and I was in agreement with most of their policies and positions.
They were Democrats and the election was the primary but this was NYC, every serious candidate was Democrat and most races were effectively decided in the primary.
The March 2020 primary was the first time I voted after I moved to NC. I went to a convenient polling place one afternoon for early voting and happened to run into a mayoral candidate and a bunch of city council candidates hanging out in the parking lot — not as sketchy as it sounds, I think they had to legally maintain a certain distance from the building.
I admit I was so excited to cast my vote in the national races that I went to the polls without giving proper thought to the local races. I spent quite a bit of time talking to this candidate group and I found it very productive.
A few times. I have voted for them sometimes. I’d say it’s an excellent tie-breaker. If there are multiple candidates that I basically agree with, I’m likely to vote for the one who showed up.
My state senator, formerly state representative, has knocked on our door at least once during every election campaign. She’s running for Congress now, so her plate’s somewhat fuller - but I expect if it weren’t for Covid, she’d have volunteers in her place knocking on doors throughout the district.
By contrast, our current Congressperson has blatantly ignored requests for town hall meetings throughout her tenure, to the point where it’s become a campaign hot button.
That seems impossible to enforce.
My democratic state rep candidate shows up every couple of years. I’m not always home. The Republican rep never has.
For my city council, the candidate lived 5 houses down from me, so it wouldn’t have been necessary for her to do so, but I did go knock on some doors for her.
The mayor, well, he knows that knocking on my door is going to be a waste of his time, and most likely, anyone running against him would know that they don’t need to.
Never seen anyone for any higher office. County, state, or federal. Only their surrogates.