Winning is contagious. Victory in Kansas begat victory in Ohio. Losing in Kansas for the Anti-Freedom side led to all kinds of excuses — they were ill-prepared, etc — but those excuses hid a central reality: they didn’t think they would lose. It was inconceivable in these conservative, red states. In Ohio, the Right abandoned their traditional argument that abortion was immoral and focused on scare tactics to motivate voters. They argued that “the abortion amendment would infringe on parents’ rights to have a say in their children’s health care,” that “parental rights [would be negated] in their teenagers’ decision to get [a] sex change operation.” We were no longer debating the same subject, but were engaged in two different, parallel arguments, each designed to appeal to the largest audience.
But Ohioans didn’t choose fear, they choose freedom. The message, the frame, mattered, just as it did in Kansas.
Organizations supportive of abortion rights say research shows that framing the issue as a matter of freedom is by far the most effective message for voters across all political persuasions. For instance, when participants in focus groups convened by NARAL Pro-Choice America were shown articles about abortion restrictions, they would often become angry, insisting that the freedom to make personal decisions without political interference was a core American value.
The message, strategists say, can work even on GOP voters.
Our experience last year in Ohio was that Hope Springs from Field PAC [website] volunteers found voters thinking seriously about the topic through the lens of those competing messages aimed at contrasts intended to negate acceptance of the other side’s argument. But what we found in Ohio, what we found in Kansas, is that the simple argument (that freedom should be enshrined in the constitution) overwhelmed the far more complex argument (essentially stoking fears about unintended consequences).
Last year, 19,427 volunteers came out to knock on doors, using our Issues Canvass technique to identify supporters of the two (different) Issue 1s on the ballot in the August special and November general elections. We expected a considerable drop off in support this year and, yet, more volunteers showed up last Saturday in Ohio than in most normal weekends last year. Only nine GOTV canvasses exceeded Saturday’s volunteer turnout. Turnout was so surprising that several of us had to cut more turf for canvassers during the training session. (As you might imagine, we had that same issue last year a few times, so we have experience in these emergency turf-cutting sessions.)
But there’s no enthusiasm on our side. Nope. Gotcha.</s>
629 volunteers showed up last Saturday to knocked on doors in the competitive OH-01, OH-09 and OH-13 Congressional Districts. A little over a hundred had signed up in advance. I don’t have an explanation for this other than the fact that winning is contagious. Victory breeds enthusiasm. And this system works. We’ve even had volunteers from last year who asked about being “Hope Springs ambassadors” to other states (like the Georgia organizers who came up for GOTV in August and November), although that can’t happened given the importance of the Senate race in Ohio.
Hope Springs volunteers knocked on 43,904 doors on Saturday. They talked to 3,793 voters, and 2,370 voters answered questions from at least part of the Issues Survey.
The Economy was the Number 1 issue for the Ohioans we talked to on Saturday. Healthcare and Health Insurance Concerns was the #2 issue voters raised. Crime was third.
Among the voters we talked to on Saturday Biden’s Job Approval was at 51%; 8% expressed some measure of Disapproval. 57% of the voters who responded Approved of the job Sen. Brown was doing while 4% expressed Disapproval. Sherrod Brown is considered key to the Senate Democratic majority. 27% of the voters we talked to thought Gov. DeWine was doing a good job, 25% said they disapproved of the job he was doing.
Hope Springs from Field PAC has been knocking on doors since March 2nd in a grassroots effort to prepare the 2024 Electoral Battleground in what has been called the First and Second Rounds of a traditional Five Round Canvass. We are talking to Democrats and unaffiliated voters with a systematic approach that reminds them not only that Democrats care, but Democrats are determined to deliver the best government possible to all Americans.
Obviously, we rely on grassroots support, so if you support field/grassroots organizing, voter registration (and follow-up), GOTV and our efforts to protect our voters, we would certainly appreciate your support:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/hopemobilization2024
Hope Springs from Field understands that volunteer to voter personal interactions are critical. Knocking on doors has repeatedly been found to be the most successful tactic to get voters to cast a ballot and that is the goal of what we do.
Hope Springs volunteers registered 14 new voters and re-registered 38 voters who updated their addresses to comply with HAVA requirements. We differentiate between the new voters and re-registering voters because brand new voters are often ignored by campaigns and we hope to compensate for that somewhat by having volunteers send them post cards before the election and they will also receive robocalls thanking them for registering.
In Ohio, we had 179 voters fill out Consti-tuent Service Request forms. We send completed CSRs to Democratic elected officials responsible for the requested functions, but if the appropriate office is held by a Republican, we still send it along. For Democrats, though, we encourage them to reach out immediately to the voter who filled out the Constituent Service Request forms and let them know they are working on the issue. This credit-taking is enormously valuable to the Democratic office-holder.
We knock on the doors of Democratic and Independent voters. At every door, we leave a piece of “show the flag” lit, something that tells them we were there and hopefully reinforces the Democratic brand. The lit focuses on the things voters told us were important to them last fall, aiming to appeal to every voter.
But the main focus of our canvassing is the Issues Survey, asking voters for their input and concerns. Voter responses to the questionnaire are entered into VAN and made available to all Democratic candidates who use VAN in the state after the primary. Creating this kind of data isn’t done with a specific goal in mind but has the purpose of engaging voters and creating a dataset that any Democratic candidate can use in opposition to a Republican. (We also make Issues Surveys, Incident Reports and Constituent Service Request forms available at the churches we visit, but we don’t include numbers for those, in part because we don’t always get counts back, but also because we like to compare like to like.)
Hope Springs has targeted states that have competitive Senate races and/or the Electoral College in 2024, as well as Congressional Districts that are remapped in ways that offer opportunities or vulnerabilities for Democrats next year (specifically those where a Republican won a Congressional District that voted for Biden in 2022). There is a lot of work to be done! Especially since we have had to expand the map this year.
By starting early, and aiming towards super-compliance with some really, really onerous new voter regulations, Hope Springs from Field seeks to undermine that strategy, while informing voters about the new laws and regulations aimed at them.
We are also — this being an election year — adding the Post Cards to New Voters component back into our Voter Outreach, both New Voters we find at their doors as well as New Voters we target in the Voter File. Several of our Arizona organizers are also talking to Native American groups about replicating our Voter Matching service that Hope Springs provides for Black Churches. It’s a big year. There’s lots to be done, and, hopefully, we won’t have to suspect in-person voter contact because of a heatwave this year.
Our biggest expense is the Voter File. But it is also a fixed cost. That won’t change as we raise and spend more money. Printing literature is our second largest cost. Printing and mailing our our Post Cards to New Voters is our third cost and paying the fees for ActBlue is the smallest of our monthly costs.
Hope Springs is a seat-of-the-pants grassroots-driven operation. We don’t have employees but we realize that to formalize and professionalize this effort that will have to change.
But here’s the reality: Identifying Single Issue Voters and Constitutional Amendment supporters and doing GOTV (Get-Out-the-Vote) costs us more money than our regular canvassing because this issue drives volunteer turnout higher and higher. Which means we have to buy more lit to distribute and other minor expenses (like water for volunteers). We just paid off the printers for last year’s Ohio lit that we distributed there. So please:
If you are able to support our efforts to protect Democratic voters, especially in minority communities, expand the electorate, and believe in grassroots efforts to increase voter participation and election protection, please help:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/hopemobilization2024
If you would rather send a check, you can follow that link for our mailing address at the bottom of the page. Thank you for your support. This work depends upon you!