The Economy was the Number 1 issue for the Arizonans we talked to on Saturday. Border Issues was the #2 issue voters raised and we heard from voters myriad comments about the twin visits to the Border on Thursday (iirc) from the two likely presidential nominees. Political Stability was third, mostly centered around Trump’s adventures in courts and the recent SCOTUS ruling.
Among the Arizonans we talked to Biden’s Job Approval was at 34%; 18% expressed some measure of Disapproval. 5% of the voters who responded Approved of the job Sen. Sinema was doing while 48% expressed Disapproval. It is important to remember that we are knocking on the doors of Democrats and unaffiliated voters. We also ask about whether voters Approve of likely Democratic nominee Ruben Gallego. 54% of the voters we talked to had a positive impression of the Congressman, and there were voters who spoke about Gallego’s experience in the Marines. So his story is getting out there. 52% of the voters we talked to thought Gov. Hobbs was doing a good job, 8% said they disapproved of the job she was doing.
Hope Springs from Field PAC started knocking on doors last week 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/hopemobilization
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.
We registered 4 new voters and re-registered 11 voters who updated their addresses (or updated their voter registration to participate in the Active Early Voting List — the latter usually skews the number higher). 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 Arizona, we had 32 voters fill out Constituent 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.
One of the biggest revelations our Arizona volunteers found in 2023 was that the Trumpian revolt has “made it uncomfortable” to other Arizonans not in Trump’s cult. It’s not like they have turned free thinkers off of politics, they have created a revulsion from others (those outside the cult) from anything Trump.
Hope Springs volunteers knocked on 483,363 doors last year in Arizona, and we have now knocked on 32% of all doors in the state. Hope Springs volunteers in Arizona have set a goal for 1 Million doors knocked before Labor Day. We also collected 2,987 Constituent Service Request forms over the last two years, and gotten 41,172 Arizonans to complete at least part of our Issues Survey. We registered or re-registered 4,304 voters in the state last year.
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.
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.