So I’ve been working my way through takeaways about AdImpact’s blog post on media pre-books for the Fall campaign. It’s really a roadmap of the battleground that Mitch McConnell and Rick Scott thought they were facing. And there’s a dark reality here. When Republicans laid down their markers with their “pre-books” they were not only planting a flag, they were trying to scare people away, specifically donors. “Don’t waste your money,” you can almost hear Mitch McConnell whispering to the Big Democratic Donors.
And then there was Dobbs. To be honest, the groundwork was being laid before Dobbs, but there is no question that Dobbs was the match to the kindling Democrats have been laying out for months.
The map to the right lays out the anticipated battle space for the Fall campaign. All the usual suspects are there, and — save for Florida (meaning, it is clear that Florida was not anticipated to be close) — Hope Springs from Field PAC has been canvassing in all these battleground states, including Florida. Deep Organizing. Planting the Democratic flag before the primaries. Reminding voters why we are Democrats (as the party of governance, we do have a responsibility to help people gain access to public services).
It has been obvious since the (surprise?) wins in the Georgia Senate Runoffs that this state was going to be ground zero. I never fail to enjoy my story about the day after that election, I was dropped off at Atlanta Hartsfield to be greeted by 4 or 5 busloads of GOP and conservative Field Organizers returning to their home hunting grounds. I got in line with hundreds of mostly young people, who had gotten off those buses with their Senate Leadership Fund facemasks, or RNC facemasks or even Club for Growth t-shirts — and here I was, feeling quite surrounded, in my Vote! facemask. Kinda hoping they didn’t realize it was a coordinated campaign mask. It was already clear that Rev. Warnock had won his race, so these Republican operatives still had hope that Mitch McConnell would be the Majority Leader. But they were mad, they felt ambushed (I heard the term used in the line to get through TSA) and they already knew they’d be coming back to Warnock’s scalp.
What they didn’t know, these hundreds of GOP field organizers who were feeling a little dejected (I can’t imagine how they felt when they realized there would be two Democratic Senators from Georgia!), is that we’d be ready. That Rev. Warnock would be a great fund-raiser — and even better Senator! That the Georgians who had mobilized for the Runoffs weren’t about to fade away. But every measure, the Georgia Senate race is the most competitive in the country — at least, as long as you believe that a Georgia Bulldogs football star could leverage his celebrity into the Senate.
There’s one thing that it’s hard to convey outside of Georgia: Republicans here don’t believe that Georgia is a Swing State. Without faulting TFG, they feel like the Runoffs were stolen from them. Runoffs are Republican strengths. And Herschel Walker is “the GOP’s star.” And, in what is supposed to be a Republican year, he’s unhinged and behind. Behind in money raised, behind in the polls, way behind in the quality of his campaign organization and especially the candidates. If you don’t think that the Warnock campaign isn’t itching to get Walker on a debate stage, you haven’t been paying attention.
And yet, Republicans continue to believe this race is their’s. And, just to be sure, they have taken every step they can think of to make it so. What Republicans — what those GOP/conservative operatives in front of me in the TSA line — failed to anticipate was that their actions have indeed prompted an equal and opposite reaction. You want to know how much fight Democrats have in them? Watch Georgia. There’s enough fight in Georgia to make movies (and legends) of Warnock and Abrams both.
625 volunteers came out to knock on doors on Saturday with Hope Springs from Field in 19 counties in southern Georgia. As you can see in the graphic to the right, we have expanded our canvass area considerably. What is important about these Black Belt counties is two unrelated factors: first of all, they are home to a former or existing student from one of the two HBCUs in that Oval (to the right). And, secondly, for the most part, these counties have endured an historically high rate of lynching and (completely related) voter suppression. And here’s the thing: most of our canvassers are not only African-American, but they are products of HBCUs and Divine Nines.
I went out with volunteers in Coffee County recently, and I told them that they were the best dressed canvassers I have ever seen. Now it doesn’t take much to dress better than I, but they definitely put me to shame in their khakis and polos, dresses in the colors of their sororities. “We represent,“ I was told. “We represent.”
And while I am fast at the door, these volunteers were very deliberate in the impression they wanted to leave behind. “There’s a future for you here in Georgia, that’s what I want my clothes to say.” I have been in and out of this state repeatedly since November 2020 and I never fail to be impressed by the volunteers here.
We ask voters who opened their doors if they were registered to vote at their current address and if they have the required photo ID they need to cast their ballot. We remind Georgians just how important it is now to have a photo ID to vote and how we will help them get one, if needed.
We canvass 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) before Labor Day.
Our major focus has been the Issues Survey. Normally, about 60-65% of the voters we talk to answer some or all of these questions. Each week, we ask voters about what issue they think is the most urgent facing America right now. This week, voters said Schools was their most pressing concern and funding for Public Schools was specifically mentioned. The Economy was the second concern. The Cost of Health Care/Health Insurance was the third most frequent response this week. Many of the counties where we are canvassing are rural and Farm Loans remains an issue.
Voter views of President Biden continue to improve but they are nowhere near that of Rev. Warnock. 62% of the voters we talked to expressed approval of President Biden in Florida on Saturday. 7% expressed disapproval in the job the president was doing. We continue to get feedback from voters that they wished Biden could do more about the price of gas, inflation and help with farm loans.
81% of the voters we talked to approved of the job Rev Warnock was doing in the Senate. 3% expressed disapproval this week. We knock on doors of Democrats and Independents, and not all nine counties we canvassed on Saturday were predominantly Democratic. We don’t knock on doors of Republican households (although we do knock on the doors of mixed households).
Governor Kemp did not fare so well. 11% of the voters we talked to approved of the governor’s work, while 47% disapproved. In Georgia, we are also asking voters what they think of Stacey Abrams and 64% expressed approval; 8% said they disapproved. We enter all this data we collect into VAN, the shared Democratic database, which is made available to all Democratic candidates who use it after the primaries.
Hope Springs from Field PAC has been knocking on doors in a grassroots-led effort to prepare the Electoral Battleground in what has been called the First Round of a traditional Five Round Canvass. 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 understands that 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 dud). 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.
We registered 14 new voters and re-registered or corrected Voter Addresses for 127 voters last Saturday. It seems our organizers are in some sort of competition with what we are doing in North Carolina, and continue to push updating voter addresses and identifying who needs a Voter (photo) ID before Labor Day.
We also ask voters if they have any concerns about the upcoming elections. Last year, we walked with lit about the changes in voting laws in Georgia, but we also asked voters about their fears and experience in prior elections. Voters who say they have experience voter intimidation or other problems with voting are asked to fill out Incident Reports. We found 37 voters who wanted to fill out Incident Reports in Georgia on Saturday — mostly in counties we had not started canvassing in until right before the primary. 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.
Like last summer and fall, we have been asking voters if they have any local infrastructure issues they would tell elected officials about. In Georgia, we have consistently found people who wanted to fill out Constituent Service Request forms. 265 voters raised some area that they wanted addressed.
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, and any questions we collect are forwarded to the appropriate campaigns (or elected officials). We are building a data goldmine that Democrats (who use VAN in November) can deploy for their own voter contact purposes.
Several professional fundraisers have told me my reports are too cheery, that if I want to raise money I need to be more scary. Maybe that is true, but Hope Springs from Field’s origins are more grassroots. If this work needs to be supported, then it will be funded. So 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!