Since September 18th, Hope Springs from Field PAC has led Fall canvassing in Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Wisconsin. This was after a two-week break for Labor Day, when we saw both organizers and volunteers return to their college campuses. And we stopped knocking on doors in Pennsylvania because they had local elections and organizers and volunteers there wanted to shift towards that. As I noted in my prior diary, we continued emergency Voter Registration canvasses in North Carolina, aimed at Voting Rights restoration. I will deal with that experience in my next diary.
What success we had (and we did continue to see positives and growth, despite the fact that it was a hard fall) is thanks to you! More than a thousand, possibly thousands of DKos readers have contributed to this effort — and more than a few have given ideas that we incorporated into this effort.
We started last June with 11 Obama field alum organizers and 3 Albany State University organizers with whom I had worked with during the 2021 Georgia Senate Runoffs. By the end of the summer, we had 21 Obama field alums, many of whom also cut turf, and 8 Albany State students who led canvasses in their home areas. This fall, we continued with 11 Obama alums cutting turf and leading canvasses, added another Obama field alum in Wisconsin, maintained 7 Albany State organizers and grew to 5 more volunteers who took up leadership roles — all despite the fact that we were knocking on doors in one fewer state.
These 24 organizers mobilized a total of 2,106 volunteers who knocked on doors this fall, often in brisk and sometimes even windy conditions. More than half of those volunteers were People of Color. Many of these volunteers came out more than once (the closer the volunteer felt to the organizer, the more likely they volunteered for multiple weekends). We found 149 volunteers who were discovered by knocking on their door, and I learned that many of these were mobilized because they knew the volunteer who knocked on their door. Campaigns do find volunteers by knocking on doors, but it is satisfying to look back on our efforts and realize that we were attracting additional volunteers. This will be even more important because the “business model” we are pursuing will “hand off” volunteers to the Senate (and Congressional District) campaigns we are hoping to help (in an independent manner). More on that later.
Hope Springs has targeted states that have competitive Senate races in 2022 as well as districts that are remapped in ways that offer opportunities or vulnerabilities for Democrats next year. As not every state has completed their re-maps, re-districting hasn’t yet made those opportunities/needs apparent. The Senate map started out clear. They may be changing. There are places we need to defend (Georgia and Arizona) and there are opportunities. North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are such opportunities. Next year, we will have a presence in Arizona, Nevada and perhaps others that appear more competitive at that time. There is a lot of work to be done!
They knocked on 167,216 doors, less than during the summer (even though volunteers in the fall were knocking on more doors per person), but partly because we had two fewer weekends in the fall. In total, we knocked on 371,020 doors not including doors we knocked during the special elections we worked. We asked every single voter we talked to if they were registered at their current address and if they had the necessary ID needed to vote in 2022. Every single voter. The literature we walked with explained the new laws and how to comply with them. We call this super-compliance. We purchased 175,000 pieces of literature to leave at doors. Pieces were unique to each state, and purchased from union printers in their states.
Volunteers participating in the efforts of Hope Springs from Field PAC talked to 21,069 voters this fall (a total of 45,317 voters including summer canvassing). For most of September, we knocked on doors in masks and those who brought their vaccination card wore the button. As fall proceeded, the vaccination requirements were determined by local conditions. In Florida and Texas (but not reported in Georgia or North Carolina!), we had negative comments about the buttons and we incorporated local needs into our canvassing. Still, volunteer safety was our highest priority and volunteers who canvassed determined how they presented themselves. I do know of a volunteer who stopped canvassing because she no longer felt safe. Of course, omicron may force new safety protocols as we get closer to spring — we will have to see.
Again, I want to thank you for your support which made it possible for our volunteers to walk with these buttons. Not only did volunteers like having them, but people asked about them every single weekend. You made that possible.
We used the same techniques to keep volunteers warm as we do to keep them cool in the hot parts of the summer. Whenever weather was around 65 degrees when we were canvassing we assigned drivers to groups of canvassers who checked on them every ~30 minutes. We also provided “Hot Hands” to volunteers who wanted them. Love these! But we do find that voters are more likely to open their doors in cooler weather.
We have been walking with an Issues Canvass, where we ask voters what they think and whether they had a message for their elected officials. 8,311 answered questions on the questionnaire, in whole or in part. Everyone who worked on the survey answered at least two questions, but it does seem like a higher percentage of voters we talked to agreed to answer questions and were more likely to answer many more questions. All this data will be available for Democratic candidates who use VAN in their general elections.
We walked with Incident Reports and collected 631 Incident Reports across four states. North Carolina ended up having the most reports, but this was because of the kind of focus we had there. This fall, Florida and Georgia flipped as we only added one new county in Florida while we added 4 counties (around Albany State University) where we were knocking. The increase in Incident Reports appears to be purely a function of how many counties we walk.
The voter intimidation and suppression incidents we found witnesses for were mostly black and brown. It won’t surprise anyone that we got very few in the suburban, largely white, precincts. And this is significant, since it seems to be that white voters are the ones who are expressing the most concern to Voter Registrars and Supervisors of Elections offices. We pass along Incident Reports to the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights and NALEO (those that correspond to Hispanic precincts), and send copies to state Democratic Party committees. But our purpose is to combine this information with the two independent databases of voting incidents to look for patterns before the election and use that information for warning district, state and U.S. attorneys’ offices that we could see those patterns resurface on election day. As I said in an earlier diary:
Protecting the vote can be pro-active. Even with all the "new" tactics that Trump and his supporters brought out in 2020 (trying to overturn the Electoral College is definitely new!), most voter suppression tactics are old and occur in the same places. Even though the internet allows for greater distribution of knowledge about efforts to keep (largely) minorities from voting, the locations or targets of that activity tends to be the same locations year in and year out. So we know where we need to be connecting with voters who might have faced voter intimidation, suppression or even violence and where we can expect it to happen in future elections.
But the purpose of collecting Incident Reports is not just for the last election, but also for future elections. But OUR purpose on Saturday was as much for preventing future occurrences of voter intimidation and suppression as re-assuring voters in affected areas that Democrats had their backs. Historical patterns are an overwhelming predictor of future incidents.
It is important to acknowledge that we have collected more Incident Reports by engaging Black and Brown congregations than we have at the door.
Voter Suppression and Election Protection will be our central focus after Labor Day in 2022. The reason we organized as a federal PAC is so that we can get poll watcher credentials for November 2022. But after next Labor Day, we hope to hand off any field organizers we hire to Senate or other statewide campaigns, in part to help them understand the data we’ve collected and placed into VAN for their use. Laws pertaining to election protection changed in the rash of new election laws Republican legislatures passed this year and we would like to get ahead of that next year.
Hope Springs from Field PAC has been knocking on doors in a grassroots-led effort to increase awareness of the fact that Democrats care about our voters and are working to protect their rights. We are thinking about how to mitigate Voter Suppression efforts, get around them and make sure we have "super compliance," both informing and helping our voters meet the requirements and get out and vote. We are taking those efforts to the doors of the communities most effected (the intended targets or victims) of these new voter suppression laws.
Obviously, we rely on grassroots support, so if you support field/grassroots organizing and our efforts to protect our voters, we would certainly appreciate your support:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/hopefield
Hope Springs from Field PAC was started by former Obama Field Organizers because field was the cornerstone of our success. The approach we adopted was focused on listening, on connecting voters and their story to the candidate and our cause. Repeated face to face interactions are critical. And we are among those who believe that Democrats didn’t do as well in the 2020 Congressional races as expected because we didn’t knock on doors. We are returning to the old school basics: repeated contacts, repeated efforts to remind them of protocols, meeting them were they are. Mentoring those who need it (like first time and newly registered voters). Reminding, reminding, reminding, and then chasing down those voters whose ballots need to be cured.
Outside of North Carolina, where we had a special emphasis on registering voters — we were literally chasing down people who we knew to be unregistered (which I will discuss in the next diary) -- 641 people filled out new voter registration forms for their states during the canvassing this summer. We relied on a number of tactics to push brand new voter registrations, depending upon the state.
We separated out how we count our voter registration numbers because we try to get mentors, someone who will stay in contact and help new voters navigate their first (presumably) election. We found 274 mentors, some of whom have taken responsibility for more than one new voter. Most of these game out of the Black Churches in North Carolina and Georgia. While trying to get mentors for new voters *we* register is important, we are finding that this needs to be something done by regular (paid) organizers and our emphasis so far has been on grassroots organizers and volunteers. This is changing (as it has to).
In all five states, we got another 2,135 voters to update their address (as required by HAVA) during our summer canvass. This is the number of voters with whom we walked away with their updated voter registration form. As I was reminded after our summer report, we are responsible for more updated registrations than these numbers because a number of voters promised to do this online, which is easier. Next year, we will actually track those we find who need to update their address (and perhaps photo ID, depending on the state) so that we can ensure that Democratic voters are properly registered before Early Voting begins.
But Voter Registration (and re-registration) has grown into a special emphasis, since it has become really clear that missing a presidential cycle of voter registration drives is hurting us.
As I mentioned above, we left lit that summarized the new elections laws in the six states.
We collected 1,394 Constituent Service Request Forms in total. In general, we sent these to Democratic elected officials responsible for the requested functions, but if the appropriate office was held by a Republican, we still sent it along. We encouraged Democratic office holders, though, to make immediate contact with the constituent requesting services and let them know they are working on the issue. This credit-taking is enormously valuable to the Democratic office-holder. And this effort will be even more valuable when we start canvassing with redistricting in mind. Helping Democratic officials reach their new constituents will help mitigate Republican efforts to draw them out of the legislatures.
The first thing we ask voters when they open the door is: "Are you registered to vote at your current address" and "Do you have the necessary photo ID in order to vote." This fall, we found another 515 Georgians who did not have the required identification (for a grand total of 802 Georgians). We scheduled events at county Registrar’s office in 15 counties (predominantly in the Black Belt) and still have 3 coming up. Our best reports (so far) is that 391 Georgians, overwhelmingly African-American, have gotten their photo Voters ID in response to our efforts . We will continue to ask voters we talk to if they have the necessary photo ID to vote in their state.
Members of the Divine Nine sororities and local Black Churches were central to this effort to build up support to help make it easy for those without the required ID to feel comfortable in getting them. As one Soro said, “We’re asking for them. They don’t need to ask for themselves. They just need to get in line.”
One of the first things I learned when I started doing this professionally was how central credit-taking is to winning campaigns since 1974. So thank you for your support. The credit is due to you. And we want to acknowledge that. You make this work possible.
These canvasses are organized and led by (mostly) Obama field alums and volunteer organizers who we trained. They have volunteered their time in their states to get this effort off the ground. Their work, knowledge and skill sets are invaluable. Many of them understood what happened in 2020, that “We did not have a sustained, all-in voter contact program in 2020. And the shock waves from the 2020 results are still reverberating. Even though Trump lost, the gains they made have lingered to support the pipe dream that Trump actually won. And Democrats lost a whole cycle's worth of field organizers who understand the interactive nature of both organic and targeted field work.”
Hope Springs from Field PAC is trying to reinstitute best field practices, such as canvassing with people who look like the voters we are talking to and targeting former voters thrown off the rolls. A lot of these got forgotten because of the Covid restrictions in the last cycle, and we have an entire cycle of campaign staffers who were trained without the benefit of actually getting to do field. That’s why it is so important to start knocking on doors now, and not wait until a month or so before the primaries. We have a lot of make-up work to do. Can you help?
Our main expenses (right now) are typical canvassing materials (water, snacks, walk packets, lit, buttons and access to VAN) as well as the mobile “copy machines”/printers (in quotes because the DKos community suggested it was a better ) we are purchasing to comply with the voter ID requirements in several states. The 6,810 robocalls cost less than one cent a call. At this time, all the money we raise is devoted to this. This is about to change. But this summer, we relied upon the Obama alumni network for organizers and cutting turf. We need to bring in other field organizers as we are able, especially since many of the people who were cutting turf now will want to devote more of their volunteer time to the candidates and causes they support.
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 donate:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/hopefield
Thank you for your support. This work depends on you!