Pandas DataFrame sort by categorical column but by specific class ordering

I think you need Categorical with parameter ordered=True and then sorting by sort_values works very nice:

Check documentation for Categorical:

Ordered Categoricals can be sorted according to the custom order of the categories and can have a min and max value.

import pandas as pd

df = pd.DataFrame({'a': ['GOTV', 'Persuasion', 'Likely Supporter', 
                         'GOTV', 'Persuasion', 'Persuasion+GOTV']})

df.a = pd.Categorical(df.a, 
                      categories=["Likely Supporter","GOTV","Persuasion","Persuasion+GOTV"],
                      ordered=True)

print (df)
                  a
0              GOTV
1        Persuasion
2  Likely Supporter
3              GOTV
4        Persuasion
5   Persuasion+GOTV

print (df.a)
0                GOTV
1          Persuasion
2    Likely Supporter
3                GOTV
4          Persuasion
5     Persuasion+GOTV
Name: a, dtype: category
Categories (4, object): [Likely Supporter < GOTV < Persuasion < Persuasion+GOTV]

df.sort_values('a', inplace=True)
print (df)
                  a
2  Likely Supporter
0              GOTV
3              GOTV
1        Persuasion
4        Persuasion
5   Persuasion+GOTV