This was our first canvass after the Fall of Roe. 70 new volunteers came out to knock on doors with Hope Springs from Field PAC last Saturday, and a number of them also adopted the ‘knock first, protest later (that afternoon).’ And the surge in volunteers was diverse in age and ethnicity.
This is our tenth week of canvassing in Nevada, knocking on doors in the Reno Suburbs and west of Las Vegas. 238 volunteers came out on Saturday to knock on doors for Hope Springs from Field PAC and plant the Democratic flag for the November election. Like last week, we had to modify our canvassing routine, which means we started earlier, knocked far fewer doors than we otherwise would have and used drivers to protect our volunteer canvassers. But a Heat Wave is a heat wave, which is why I am so appreciative for those who do come out.
We knew it was coming. We know how to do this (I started knocking on doors in Central Florida, where primaries were in late HOT August) and one of the reasons why the Obama connection is so important to what we are doing now is that the field program in the Obama campaigns also prized volunteers to a high degree. No one wants a volunteer to get heat stroke, no one wants volunteers even coming close. Volunteers are valuable, and the fact is that if volunteers have health issues during a volunteer shift, they aren’t likely to come back. Volunteers are golden.
We cut turf differently during the summer for states that can experience hot late mornings/early afternoons. Hope Springs from Field PAC sends out volunteer teams in the hot months led by a driver. In Arizona, Nevada, Florida and Georgia — even North Carolina -- we cut summer turf and map out that turf with a car and driver in mind. We want a driver/supervisor to have eyes on each volunteer every 20-30 minutes or so. And when volunteers get too hot, they jump into the vehicle and join the watch on the other members of the team. We also know to cut turf in smaller segments than we would in the fall or spring.
We’ve been canvassing with an Issues Questionnaire that allows voters to tell us what is on their minds. We use it as a conversational check to guide volunteers through their dialog at the door. It makes it easy on our volunteers as provides us with vital data that will be entered in VAN (the Democratic database) after the primary.
Our very first priority in these Senate Swing State canvasses is making sure that everyone in the houses that opened their doors was registered to vote at their current address. Updating voter registration is just as important as getting unregistered people registered to vote. Voters who aren’t registered at their current address (as required by HAVA) risk being challenged at the polls by the right-wing nuts like MGT or True Vote poll watchers. A lot of voters don’t realize this, and don’t mind being reminded that they need to update their address to stay (legally) on the voter rolls.
Reproductive Rights was definitely the top concern among the voters we talked to on Saturday. Lots and lots of comments. Inflation was our second most frequent response. Gun Violence has crept into voters minds and into third place among the Nevada voters we talked to.
Pretty interesting, because economic insecurity had been evident in the prior weeks, but not so much last Saturday. Which is not to say that concerns about the economy and the possibility of a recession (a word that has come up at the door) are not there, but the Supreme Court decision was definitely on voters’ minds this weekend. Not just in Nevada.
Voter views of President Biden were up this week. Biden’s favorable numbers was down 1 percentage point to 57% of the voters we talked to in Nevada last had a favorable view Saturday. 12% expressed disapproval in the job the president was doing and voters have been pretty clear why. Not sure we can say that Biden’s numbers have bottomed out, but the Nevada results are at least encouraging here.
48% of the voters, Democrats and independents, had a favorable impression of Senator Cortez Masto. 5% told us they had an unfavorable of the senator. 51% of the voters who responded gave Governor Sisolak a favorable rating. 8% said they had an unfavorable impression. But we did get two questions from voters about whether Sisolak would “preserve” Reproductive Rights in the state. As unlikely as it would seem that Nevada would allow an abortion ban to be signed into law given the current composition of the state house, it is something that came to mind for those voters. Reproductive Rights is becoming a factor in people’s voting decisions this 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, and, in March, we will begin an even bigger effort. 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, voter registration (and follow-up) and our efforts to protect our voters, we would certainly appreciate your support:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/2022senateswing
Hope Springs from Field PAC was started by former Obama Field Organizers because field was the cornerstone of our success. But the reason we won the Iowa Caucus in 2008 was because we registered voters and then turned them out! 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 — and we didn’t register new voters (while Republicans did). 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.
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. That may be changing. There are places we need to defend (Georgia, Arizona and Nevada) and there are opportunities. North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are such opportunities. There is a lot of work to be done!
But we got positive feedback just from knocking on their doors. 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 in 2020. Covid-19 knocked us out of the ground game.
We also ask voters if they have any local infrastructure issues they would tell local elected officials about. We ask those who do if they wanted to fill out Constituent Service Request forms. 72 voters raised some area that they wanted addressed. We pass these along to the relevant local official for the request. We use a generic CSR because cities and towns have vastly different methods and forms for dealing with this.
Constituent Service Requests are handed over to (hopefully Democratic) office holders with responsibilities for the area of the request. Q-slips will be sent directly to the campaigns of Democratic candidates. Comments from Observation Forms are entered into VAN, as well.
Door to Door canvassing is the most effective way to reach voters but it is doubly important now since Democrats didn’t really do in-person canvassing in 2020. And, yet, we have found that voters missed that kind of in-person contact and ability to have a conversation about political issues and concerns. Our own experience knocking on doors in Texas and the Senate Swing States last year was that many Democrats and Independents felt more confident supporting candidates who sent people out into their neighborhoods asking for their support.
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. Far and away the number one issue that the voters we talked to in the Senate Swing States last year was inflation or price increases, and I imagine that concern has only increased.
We specifically ask voters if they have any concerns about the upcoming elections. Voters who say they have experience voter intimidation or other problems with voting are asked to fill out Incident Reports. We found 7 voters who wanted to fill out Incident Reports in Florida on Saturday. We collate these Incident Reports, to be shared with local, state and federal officials in charge of voting, as well as use them to plan out our Election Protection strategy in the fall. They could also be used in court cases.
Hope Springs from Field PAC has a hybrid approach. We aren’t interested in competing with regular campaign field organizing. We are in the field before they get there and then move on to voter protection when the Democratic campaigns start their intensive field work. Indeed, when we wind up the typical field work by Labor Day, we will encourage all the volunteers working with us to move over to the Senate campaigns in their states (and hope that our field organizers will be hired on by those campaigns). After Labor Day, we will begin organizing our Election Protection Project.
But we are also cognizant that Democratic turnout has traditionally dropped off more than Republicans in non-presidential years. So early, frequent voter contact is more important to our side. Equally important, though, is that starting early means that we can make up for our inability to register new voters in the presidential election because we took Covid and the health of our base seriously. Registering new voters (and re-registering existing voters at their current address, in compliance with HAVA) at their door is the hard way to do voter registration, but we catch people that our voter registration campaigns can miss because of their emphasis on larger-scale or mass voter registration.
By starting early, and aiming towards super-compliance with Nevada’s voting laws, Hope Springs from Field PAC seeks to undermine the Republican strategy of shaping the electorate.
If you are able to support our efforts to protect Democratic voters, expand the electorate, and believe in grassroots efforts to increase voter participation and election protection, please help:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/2022senateswing
Thank you for your support. This work depends on you!