Hope Springs from Field PAC finally has a website. After pestering from some very serious, and knowledgeable contributors, and the kind folks at Cooperative Digital (who patiently worked through our limitations), you can find the first iteration at the URL HopeSpringsFromField.org. Our vision for the website is to be able to attract and capture data like we do in our canvasses for more rural areas, specifically for states like Montana as well as function as a springboard for volunteers. We don’t see it as a replacement of our field efforts (digital can’t replace field and field can’t replace digital, that’s just the reality, they are different), but there are areas in states like Montana (or Texas or Nevada etc) where we can’t reach Democratic-aligned voters with volunteers because of the low population density.
The website is a start. When i outlined the end product of what i wanted, i started with Election Day (i’ve said before that i was taught to build backwards a field plan, starting from Election Day) and talked about my trying to get the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights to have an Election Day app so that voters could go to their phone when they were standing in line, or inside their polling place, or had just voted and discreetly record Election Day problems. And the good people at Cooperative Digital understood the logistics of that vision better than i did (well, actually, we saw different aspects of the logistics, but i didn’t think about the parts they did). Hopefully we will get there, but the point is that we want the website to ultimately replicate as well as compliment the things Hope Springs volunteers are doing on the ground.
Why do i mention this, before getting into the topic at hand? Well, first of all, in the last week i’ve now been asked by volunteers about our plans for Postcards for New Voters and whether they can get started now! The first two emails really blew my mind, because i was preparing for last weekend’s canvass and it was the furthest thing from my mind at the time. But the fact is, with the website (scroll down to the middle) you can sign up now for our postcards effort. We are asking volunteers who are interested to commit to writing people who have never voted before, almost always 18-29 year olds, 3 times on a very specific schedule (at least a week before Early Voting begins in their state, right before Early Voting begins in their state and ~10 days before election day). We provide the postcards, which is why we ask that volunteers take at least 25 voters who they will write 3 times on schedule. Volunteers/postcard writers provide postage. We will be sending postcards to brand new voters in the competitive states.
But we are asking for other kinds of volunteers, as well. For example, periodically i will be asked about how someone can canvass with us. You can sign up on the website. And, if (for example) you were interested in our Election Protection project, even from home in a completely different state, you can sign up on the website. Because, if we are to replicate the efforts of 1-800-OUR-VOTE through the website or an app, we have to have live volunteers who can respond to voter input and direct that input to people on the ground in their state and area who are prepared to do something about it.
Saturday was the first day that we had a full blown canvass in the Reno suburbs as well as in the Las Vegas area (NV-01 & NV-03). The weather forecast was sufficiently stable. 340 volunteers turned up to knock on doors in the Las Vegas and Reno region. They knocked on 24,378 doors and talked to 1,899 voters. 1,264 of those voters answered at least some of our questions on the Issues Survey.
Hope Springs volunteers have now collected (to date) 8,892 verified petitions from valid voters for the Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment in Nevada. Canvass volunteers continue to collect signatures, and organizers continue to verify the address and voter registration of those who sign our volunteers’ petitions. The more Nevadan voters we can get invested in this proposition, the better we will do in November.
Hope Springs from Field PAC began knocking on doors March 2nd 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. In states where their are voter-driven petitions for Constitutional Amendments for Protecting Reproductive Freedom, volunteers carry those petitions.
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/hopemobilization2024
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.
The Top 3 Issues canvassers found in Nevada last weekend was, first, Economic Uncertainty. Housing and Housing Insurance Issues was the Second most frequently cited concern. Reproductive Freedom or Rights was Third. Like Florida and Arizona, we had voters in Nevada ask about signing the petition to get it on the ballot before volunteers opened their mouths.
Biden’s Approval numbers among the Nevadans we talked to was at 51% last Saturday, with a Disapproval number of 8%. Senator Rosen had an Approval rating of 53% with 5% of the voters we talked to on Saturday expressing Disapproval. Approval of Governor Lombardo was 24% and Disapproval was 37% last Saturday.
Volunteers registered 7 new voters and re-registered 22 voters. We differentiate between the two 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 are also getting robocalls thanking them for registering. But we are finding lots of teens who just turned legal age whose parents (primarily mothers) are insisting they register.
112 voters filled out Constituent Service Request forms. We send completed CSRs to Democratic elected officials responsible for the requested functions, but if there are no Democrats who can further the request, and 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.
3 voters filled out Incident Reports about issues they witnessed in a prior election. We continue to see voters who want to fill out an Incident Report but realize they didn’t actually witness something to report. Nevada and North Carolina seem to lead the states where we canvass in this regard. We have been building a database of Incident Reports, and reports we collected in Nevada have been used successfully to request a time extension for voters before a polling precinct closed.
Incident Reports are used to plan Election Protection activities, and will be combined with other, historical incidents and handed over to District and State Attorneys, Attorney Generals and the DoJ Civil Rights Division right before Election Day as a precaution against Election Day Incidents in November. Past polling place activity is a predictor of future voter intimidation or suppression activity.
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. This is really dependent upon the Native American tribes, though. 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.
Our biggest expense is the Voter File. But it is also a fixed cost. That won’t change as we raise and spend more money. Printing literature is our second largest cost. Printing and mailing our our Post Cards to New Voters is our third cost and paying the fees for ActBlue is the smallest of our monthly costs.
Hope Springs is a seat-of-the-pants grassroots-driven operation. We don’t have employees but we realize that to formalize and professionalize this effort that will have to change.
But here’s the reality: Identifying Single Issue Voters and Constitutional Amendment supporters and doing GOTV (Get-Out-the-Vote) costs us more money than our regular canvassing because this issue drives volunteer turnout higher and higher. Which means we have to buy more lit to distribute and other minor expenses (like water for volunteers). We just received our Third Printer for Arizona (not sure we even had three printings last year there). So please:
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 help:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/hopemobilization2024
If you would rather send a check, you can follow that link for our mailing address at the bottom of the page. Thank you for your support. This work depends upon you!