California volunteers vital to Trump and Clinton's national get out the vote efforts

MOUNTAIN VIEW-- (KTVU)  A phone to the ear is the California volunteer's equivalent of boots on the ground, in this last leg of the presidential campaign.

California is not a swing state, but Californians are playing a critical role in both candidates' nationwide campaign strategies, by making thousands of phonecalls to voters in battleground states such as North Carolina, Ohio, Arizona, Colorado, and Nevada.

At the Clinton campaign call center in Mountain View, one volunteer Paul Leong of Mountain View says he feels he is making a difference, pointing to one call with a voter in Reno who originally supported Trump.

"We had a nice talk and at the end of the call he decided to go Hillary and straight Democrat," Leong said.

Phone banking has gone high tech in this election. The national headquarters for the Trump campaign and Clinton campaign can use automated dialing to send targeted phone lists of battleground state voters phone lists to computerized stations for California volunteers to call.

"The system makes the calls and if there's no answer, it goes to the next one so people instead of having to spend time waiting for the phone to answer. They go from call to call to call," said Eitan Fenson, a Los Altos Hillary Team Leader.

At a Donald Trump call center in Sunnyvale, there was a similar setup, but a set of voters with very different views. Trump has 20 call centers in California and the Trump campaign headquarters sends out new call lists every day, with thousands of volunteers calling swing state voters to better identify where to send teams to knock on doors.

"We're calling every single person, finding out if they're undecided, or HIllary or Trump. If anyone is undecided, we have ground troops. And ground troops are in other states and they're going to every single undecided and they will be meeting with them," Kim Womack, Los Gatos Trump Volunteer

Some Trump supporters said it was their first time volunteering for the GOP to get out the vote.

"I voted Democratic at one point in my life but i've always had conservative views and so in the past couple years I came over to the Republican side," said Juan Hernandez, a Santa Clara Trump volunteer. Hernandez says he supports Trump because he thinks Trump will protect Second Amendment gun rights, be supportive of LGBTQ issues, and tough on illegal immigration.

"I know a lot of other people who are in the Mexican community who have come here legally, who have waited in line and done everything they're supposed to be doing and then they have the undocumenteds that are here that Hillary wants to give amnesty to or citizenship to. There is a lot of resentments," Hernandez said.

At this point, many volunteer callers say they've been finding only a few undecided voters.

"Been cussed out once or twice," said David Westerman a San Jose Trump supporter, laughing, "For the ones who are Trump, of course they're very responsive. Some people say they're independents and they're trying to decide and you know we try to explaining to them the advantages of going for Trump."

"I really feel we're making a difference, especially in Arizona just a few days ago, we saw his numbers are on the rise," said Peter Kuo, a Trump volunteer leader overseeing Silicon Valley and Santa Cruz.

At the Clinton campaign's Mountain View office, one woman said she decided to volunteer just days ago, because of the letter written by FBI Director James Comey saying the FBI was examining a new batch of emails but not sure if they are connected to the Clinton email server.

"That was the straw that broke the camel's back, said Sara Salem, a Mountain View Clinton volunteer, "I really feel like I need to contribute my energy at this point because I think she was dealt an unfair setback with the letter by the FBI."

Volunteers for both Trump and Clinton campaigns plan to be making calls every day through election day.