Combine that with volunteers from labor unions, neighborhood groups and Democratic Party organizations and the turnout effort becomes formidable.

Leaders of the turnout effort said they felt confident they had done all they could.

A spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, Tracey Schmitt, said Republicans planned to match the turnout efforts.

All my research says this hurts turnout efforts.

Yet, Mr. Linder added, "if I were to do it over again, I probably would have moved some money off TV and moved it into more turnout efforts."

He offers a left-handed compliment to the turnout effort, saying the total does not even include "the paid union organizers they have on the ground, trashing us door to door."

Normally, such turnout efforts have been a Democratic specialty, and organizers in each of the swing states said this year's effort was the largest in the party's history.

The three men wondered why it was that they hadn't seen much evidence of the vaunted Republican turnout effort.

This year, the Democratic turnout effort is called the Campaign for Connecticut Families.

"Democrats outsource a lot of their turnout efforts to labor," said Mike DuHaime, political director of the Republican National Committee.