Nevada has been getting a lot of attention lately. This has a lot to do with that New York Times/ Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena College poll of registered voters in six battleground states. Registered voters, not likely voters, not known voters. Self-identified registered voters. But, heh, it sells newspapers.
Hope Springs from Field PAC [website] volun-teers in Nevada use a canvassing approach that relies on voter-led discussions of the issues and voter-identified problems that could determine their vote. One of the places where we see the largest benefits in the field, by utilizing this approach, is among the Latino voters with whom we engage. While we don’t have enough Spanish-speaking canvassers to really go into the northern Las Vegas neighborhoods (this is one of those factors driving the expansion into state Hope Springs entities next year), the neighborhoods where we canvass do have a number of Latino, probably better-educated voters.
Canvassing last Saturday made this really clear. One volunteer in the Vegas area was bombarded with questions why she hadn’t “ignored this house like other canvassers did” in the last cycle. “They knocked on the doors to the left and right of us, and across the street, but no one knocked on our door.” Why? she was asked.
Now that volunteer did not write down how she responded, but we know from the observations sheet and Q-slip that she was busy writing down what the voter had to say. And, boy, did they have something to say! The big takeaway was “Don’t ignore us!” and “Give us something to vote for.” Lots of other relevant observations, as well, but she knew Democrats hadn’t been canvassing her neighborhood as much as 6 years ago, and they had skipped her house when they did knock on doors in the neighborhood.
The NYTimes called Latinos “Newly Trump-Friendly” and while the wasn’t exactly what our volunteer took away from that experience, we can’t deny that we are finding restlessness among all kinds of voters in Nevada, regardless of ethnicity.
Like Arizona, Nevada has a competitive presidential race, a competitive U.S. Senate race and a ballot initiative on Reproductive Freedom on the ballot. But voters in Nevada are less alarmed at their Reproductive Rights being denied because that possibility is theoretical right now. Voters do understand the difference.
And, like in Arizona, Latinos are expected to make up roughly one in four eligible voters in Nevada, making them well-positioned to tip the balance of power in the Senate and the Electoral College.
We continue to knock on doors in the Las Vegas area (NV-01 & NV-03) and the suburbs of Reno. 439 volunteers turned up to knock on doors in Nevada last Saturday. They knocked on 31,476 doors and talked to 2,826 voters. 1,746 of those voters answered at least some of our questions on the Issues Survey.
Hope Springs volunteers have now collected (to date) 20,015 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.
The Top 3 Issues canvassers found in Nevada last weekend were, first, Economic Uncertainty. Last week it was Jobs and the Economy, so i’m not sure how much voter opinion changed in that. Healthcare, including the rising cost of Health Insurance, was the Second most frequently cited concern. Reproductive Freedom or Rights was Third. Like Florida and Arizona, we have voters in Nevada ask about signing the petition to get it on the ballot before volunteers opened their mouths.
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.
Biden’s Approval numbers among the Nevadans we talked to was at 50% last Saturday, with a Disapproval number of 11%. Senator Rosen had an Approval rating of 56% with 6% of the voters we talked to on Saturday expressing Disapproval. In the last cycle, Sen. Cortez Masto won her race by the narrowest margin of any Senate race, and Rosen may be in a tougher spot this year. Cortez Masto had roots in Nevada politics, having served as state attorney general before becoming a senator, while Rosen faces her first reelection bid. Rosen beat incumbent Sen. Dean Heller in 2018, beating him with 50.41% of the vote.
Approval of Governor Lombardo was 27% and Disapproval was 28% last Saturday. Las Vegas has continuously been more kind to the Governor than has the Reno area. (Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo was one of the first Republican governors to codify protections for abortion providers and out-of-state abortion patients. Though Lombardo describes himself as “pro-life,” he promised on the campaign trail to abide by the law allowing legal abortions up to 24 weeks.)
Volunteers registered 14 new voters and re-registered 26 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.
81 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.
1 voter filled out an Incident Report 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.
The NYTimes reminds us that:
Nevada was the only battleground state to move to the right from the 2016 election to the 2020 contest, and economic indicators have flashed warning lights ever since the pandemic decimated Nevada’s ability to welcome tourists to casinos and sporting events in Las Vegas and Reno. The state’s Democratic governor lost re-election in 2022.
In another piece, focused on Nevada and the Latino vote, it reads:
Since 2020, Republicans have increased outreach to Hispanic voters. They have attracted more Hispanic candidates, particularly in parts of Florida, Texas and New Mexico, and reached out to voters in Spanish more frequently. Major evangelical groups that once focused largely on white congregations have expanded their political outreach to Latino churches.
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.
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.
2023 Hope Springs expenses
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). 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!
