Last weekend, Hope Springs from Field PAC organized Voter Registration or correction/make-up canvasses in four states: North Carolina, Texas, Florida and Georgia. In North Carolina, we sent out people in Cary and Robeson County. This diary focuses on our efforts in Cary, NC.
The Research Triangle has seen explosive growth in the last decade or so (23% over the last decade), and a large part of the reason that North Carolina has voted for a Democratic president and governor is because of the growth in the Research Triangle. It is not the only reason (Charlotte is a huge factor as well), but it is a major factor. And the reason why North Carolina is of interest now is because it has an open Senate seat in 2022 which is considered potentially competitive, depending the outcome of the two major party's primaries. Cook Political Report calls it a Toss-Up.
North Carolina is changing. It’s more diverse than even just a couple election cycles ago, and people are leaving rural areas and moving to cities and suburbs. This all signals a shift in the state’s voting tendencies, making it a significant swing state in the upcoming presidential election.
... most of the state’s growth is in demographic groups that tend to vote Democratic: urban residents, minorities and newcomers with college degrees.
Meanwhile, the state’s population is growing more diverse. Between 2013 and 2018, the state’s Hispanic population increased by 22 percent, those who describe themselves as multi-racial grew by 30 percent and the number of Asians rose by 44 percent. The state’s white population grew by 4 percent.
The work we are doing now is basically make-up work. In swing or target states, Democrats -- but especially the presidential campaigns -- will focus on voter registration efforts as kind of kick-off canvassing. It is a way to generate interest, enthusiasm and finding volunteers. Asking people if they are registered to vote (hopefully, asking if they are registered to vote at their current address!) is a lot easier than asking them to vote for your preferred candidate. But we couldn't do that last year. Covid-19 knocked us out of the ground game. In North Carolina, this meant that Republicans registered 50,000 more new voters in 2020 than Democrats -- although the North Caroline GOP "lost close to 2% of its share of North Carolina voters." But this is a state where the share of voters who were registered as Democrats has every year since 2008 (primarily Democrats who were "Jessiecrats"). Democrats have "lost 128,787 registered democratic voters since 2016."
Perhaps the biggest factor, though, is the loss of African American registrants in North Carolina. "From December 2012 until May of this year, the number of African American registered voters dropped by 80,000 or 1.11%." This number is likely to improve, given the presence of former state Supreme Court chief justice Cheri Beasley (who lost re-election by 401 votes, something that we are finding as extra motivating), perhaps the best known African-American politician in the state.
In states where there has been explosive growth, voter registration drives are critical. Georgia is an example of how registering people to vote can shape the electorate in our favor. But there are lots of organizations that go out and register voters, most of them focused on population attractors, like grocery stores, etc. We aren't doing that (and have no interest in competing with other, local organizations that do it); we are literally stealing from the GOP playbook here as well as using it to mitigate Republican/conservative tactics designed to suppress our voters.
How are we stealing from the Republican playbook? Well, in Cary, we are using data from a local Realtor to anchor canvasses around homes and neighborhoods that have recently (in the last year) changed hands but aren't reflected in VAN as having newly registered voters. Utility hook-ups have been used elsewhere for the same purpose.
But there are multiple reasons why we do this. While many of us may be familiar with True the Vote's attempt to throw 364,000 Georgians off the voter rolls because they believed they matched information from the National Change of Address database, in North Carolina, anyone can basically do that:
Any registered voter can challenge someone's right to register, remain registered or to vote in an Election. Any registered voter of the same precinct as the challenged voter may challenge a voter's right to vote. If you are not eligible to enter a challenge, you should bring your concerns to a candidate's campaign organization.
You may challenge a mail-in absentee, one-stop early voting, or Election Day ballot on the day of the election. Challenges to mail-in absentee or one-stop ballots are made at the Board of Elections, or to the Chief Judge at the voter's precinct. Challenges to ballots cast on Election Day are made at the precincts.
Hence the focus on super-compliance. Because if the North Carolina Senate race is competitive, you can be assured that Republicans will pull out all the stops to keep it. And this requires the repeated contacts that are the gold standard in canvassing.
Hope Springs from Field PAC is doing just that, knocking on doors right now in the effort to mitigate Voter Suppression laws, making voters aware and helping them to understand what is required to cast your vote so it will be counted. We works towards "super compliance" for 2022, taking those efforts to the doors of the communities most effected (the intended targets) of these new voter suppression laws.
Obviously, we would like your support. All too often, efforts to mitigate voter suppression have been done in the last month before the general election, generally by campaigns. But they don’t have to be. As Republicans now begin their efforts to shape the electorate at the outset of election cycles, so should we. We need your help to make voter suppression mitigation and super-compliance a year(s) round activity. If you support field/grassroots organizing and our efforts to protect our voters, we would certainly appreciate your support:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/voterprotection
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. 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 aren't walking just with Voter Registration forms and reminding voters that they need to be registered at their current address. We were also asking voters in Cary about their opinions, issues of import and whether they had a message for their elected representatives. We took a message of "We are Democrats and We Care!" to the door. Those who are not interested in talking to Democrats made that apparent quickly.
As I always tell volunteers at the beginning of canvass season (granted, this is make-up work!), a 5 (someone who vehemently opposes our candidates) is just as good as a 1 (someone excited by our candidates) because it allows us to cull our lists and free up valuable dollars and volunteer efforts to contact them in the future. And the earlier we have that information, the better.
But just as important, taking the Democratic banner to doors long before people start paying attention demonstrates that we are not taking them for granted. This is critical in swing states and districts.
If you support our grassroots efforts to expand and protect the vote, especially in minority communities, please chip in:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/voterprotection