Early turnout this year continues to be driven by volunteers wanting to circulate their state’s petitions. In states that don’t have an abortion-related amendment on the ballot in November, the national conversation about Reproductive Freedom and the Trump threat (even if unacknowledged) and a National Abortion Ban seems to be driving volunteers to show up everywhere.
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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.
We began knocking on doors again in Arizona (and Florida) on March 2nd, talking to voters, collecting signatures for the Abortion Ballot Initiative, raising the Democratic banner and collecting data that will help Democratic candidates get voters to the polls in 2024. Hope Springs volunteers have now collected 50,884 verified petitions from valid Arizona voters who live at the address from which they are registered (we match voters with their address to petitions on an ongoing basis).
In Arizona, 491 volunteers came out to knock on doors last Saturday in the western and southern suburbs of Phoenix and Tucson. It is starting to getting hotter, in the 90s — it’s going to be a long Summer, and our deployment of Cooling Vehicles for canvassers isn’t far away. We knocked on 35,990 doors in Arizona and talked to 3,084 voters. 1,995 of those voters answered at least some of the questions on our Issues Survey. We registered 16 new voters and re-registered 38 voters. 133 voters filled out Constituent Service Request forms and 4 voters completed Incident Reports as witnesses to Voter Intimidation in prior elections.
(Rising) Prices was the Number 1 issue for the Arizonans we talked to on Saturday. Border Security and/or Immigration was the #2 issue voters raised. Reproductive Freedom and Abortion Rights was third.
Biden Approval among the Arizonans we talked to was 50% last Saturday. Disapproval was 11%. Remember that we are knocking on doors of Democrats or unaffiliated voters; we endeavor not to knock on any doors where all voters in the household are Republicans (and will ask for a specific voter when it is a mixed household), but i think this is the first week in Arizona where Biden’s job approval number increased while his disapproval number fell. We only rarely talk to Republicans given how we cut turf. 22% approved of Sinema, while 34% disapproved. We’ve been asking about the likely Democratic Senate nominee, Ruben Gallego, since Sinema left the Democratic Party; 54% of the voters we talked to on Saturday approved of Gallego. 54% approved of the Governor, Katie Hobbs. 7% disapproved.
In Florida, we continue to knock on doors in Clay, Dade, Monroe, Osceola, Seminole, Volusia and Duval counties. 439 volunteers came out last Saturday, knocked on 31,467 doors and talked to 2,766 voters. 1,734 Issues Surveys were completed, with 17 new voters registered and 34 voters re-registered (all using the Secretary of State website). 94 voters filled out Constituent Service Request forms and 3 voters completed Incident Reports.
Hope Springs volunteers have collected 55,374 verified petitions from valid voters who lived at the address from which they were registered. We match voter data with the voter database for those who sign the petitions our volunteers circulate before submitting them.
The Top Issue in Florida last Saturday was Inflation or High Prices. Housing Concerns and Insurance (Price) Increases was the second most frequently cited Issue. Political Violence was the third.
48% of the voters we talked to approved of the job President Biden is doing in Florida. 11% disapproved. 13% approved of the job Rick Scott was doing; 38% disapproved. 14% approved of the job Ron DeSantis is doing; 27% disapproved. Scott really took a dive, with fewer voters approving of the senator than the governor.
288 volunteers came out to knock on doors last Saturday in the Atlanta suburbs and in southern Georgia Blackbelt counties. We knocked on 21,456 doors and talked to 1,905 voters. 1,232 of those voters answered at least some of our questions on our Issues Survey (also up from the prior week!). We registered 44 new voters and re-registered 31 voters. Note the fact that Hope Springs volunteers registered more new voters than re-registrations (again!). This is a result of our efforts to find and register voters in Counties where African-Americans have been historically suppressed. 57 voters filled out Constituent Service Request forms and 3 voters completed Incident Reports.
(Rising) Prices & Inflation was the Top Issue in Georgia on Saturday. Housing Availability, Costs and Housing Insurance Costs was second. Concerns over Political Extremism was third. I’d love to understand more about the distinctions voters are making over Political Stability, Violence and Extremism.
Biden Approval among the Georgians we talked to was 52% last Saturday. Like last year, rises in Biden approval ratings in Georgia tend to be a result of talking to more minority voters. 10% of the voters we talked to disapproved of the president. 32% approved of the Governor, Brian Kemp. 34% disapproved. Kemp support is slowly recovering in the eyes of Democrats and unaffiliated voters in Georgia. At least from the voters we are talking to.
We didn’t canvass this week in Maryland, due to inclement weather.
435 volunteers came out to knock on doors in Michigan last Saturday in our first canvass this year. Hope Springs volunteers knocked on 31,929 doors last Saturday and talked to 2,640 voters. 1,655 of those voters answered questions to at least part of the Issues Survey.
Economic Uncertainty was the Number 1 Issue in Michigan on Saturday. Concern over Crime was second. Campus Protests and fears for the Summer was third.
Biden Approval among the voters we talked to was 50% last Saturday. 11% disapproved of the president. 53% approved of the Governor Whitmer. 8% disapproved.
In Montana, we are not officially canvassing right now. We are cutting turf for the volunteers who want to circulate petitions, of the Democrats who live in their area. This was requested as many Montanans are unaware of their fellow Democrats, especially those voters who are not active or vocal. So far, we have distributed 184 pieces of turf; several volunteers have taken multiple walk lists for their signature gathering efforts.
So far, we have validated or verified the voter status and address of 2,825 voter signatures in Montana.
In Nevada, 448 volunteers came out to canvass in the Las Vegas area (NV-01 & NV-03) and Reno suburbs. We knocked on 31,987 doors and talked to 2,802 voters. 1,728 answered questions on our Issues Survey. We registered 9 new voters and re-registered 19 voters, updating their current address. 111 voters completed Constituent Service Request forms and 2 voters filled out an Incident Report.
Hope Springs volunteers have now collected (to date) 27,484 verified petitions from valid voters for the Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment in Nevada. Nevada needed 103,000 valid signatures of registered voters in the state by June 26 to get on the ballot; more than 200,000 signatures have now been turned in.
(Rising) Prices was the Top Issue in Nevada last Saturday. Housing Issues and Housing Insurance Prices was second. Reproductive Freedom or Rights remained third.
Biden Approval among the voters we talked to was 50% last Saturday. Again, breaking the 50% marker was significant in a Swing State even though Biden dropped a point from his high. 12% disapproved of the president. 58% approved of their Senator, Jacky Rosen. But Rosen definitely has higher name recognition than we were finding for Cortez Masto two years ago. 7% disapproved. 26% approved of the Governor, Joe Lombard. 28% disapproved. Lombard is Republican, and much better known in the Las Vegas area.
238 volunteers came out to knock on doors last Saturday in North Carolina. We are focusing on the new (NC Republicans gerrymandered the state again this year) North Carolina Congress-ional District map, and, specifically, NC-01, NC-07, NC-09 and NC-13, this year. We knocked on 17,540 doors and talked to 1,487 voters. 932 of those voters answered at least some of our questions on our Issues Survey. We registered 32 new voters and re-registered 24 voters, updating their voting addresses. 39 voters filled out Constituent Service Request forms and 1 voter filled out an Incident Report.
Economic Uncertainty was the Top Issue in North Carolina on Saturday, and one voter observed that “this is supposed to be a good economy, but we don’t see it.” Healthcare & Prescription Costs was second. Campus Protests was third.
Biden Approval among the voters we talked to was 49% last Saturday. 13% disapproved of the president. 50% approved of the Governor, Roy Cooper. 8% disapproved.
It’s one thing for one Democrat to be going down, but when both the major Democrats in the state fall in approval ratings, that’s a little disconcerting.
385 volunteers showed up last Saturday in Ohio to knock on doors in the competitive OH-01, OH-09 and OH-13 Congressional Districts. They knocked on 28,474 doors on Saturday. They talked to 2,360 voters, and 1,503 voters answered questions from at least part of the Issues Survey.
(Rising) Prices or Inflation was the Number 1 issue for the Ohioans we talked to on Saturday. Housing and Housing Insurance Concerns/Costs was the #2 issue voters raised. Campus Protests was third.
Biden’s Job Approval was at 50%; 9% expressed some measure of Disapproval. 56% of the voters who responded Approved of the job Sen. Brown was doing while 8% expressed Disapproval. 34% of the voters we talked to thought Gov. DeWine was doing a good job, 32% said they disapproved of the job he was doing.
Our scheduled canvasses in Pennsylvania got rained out (again).
468 volunteers came out to knock on doors last Saturday in Texas. We knocked on 34,023 doors and talked to 3,021 voters. 1,894 of those voters answered at least some of our questions on our Issues Survey. We registered 22 new voters and re-registered 41 voters. 156 voters filled out Constituent Service Request forms and 3 voters completed Incident Reports.
We are canvassing in Texas because of the Senate race. We didn’t canvass there last year but our absence meant that data we collect didn’t make it into VAN last year; volunteers wanted to give Democrats the best possible chance to defeat Ted Cruz — who can argue with that. Democratic candidates need this data, Democratic voters need to get that kind of direct or in person voter contact. So it’s an experiment.
The Economy was the Top Issue in Texas. Housing and Housing Insurance Issues was second and Border Security was third. We did talk to a voter who said the head of their household was in southern Texas for a months long deployment and they wondered when he would be coming home.
Biden Approval among the Texans we talked to was 44% last Saturday. 8% of the voters we talked to disapproved of the president. 17% of the voters voiced approval of Ted Cruz; 38% disapproved. We have also been asking about job approval of Colin Allred, the Democrat running against Ted Cruz. 43% of the voters we talked to approved of the job he’s been doing. 12% approved of the Governor, Greg Abbot. 41% disapproved. Abbott does seem to be a character that evokes public opinion.
But these are the kinds of notes that volunteers take and organizers fed into VAN. Democratic candidates will be able to use this information in the Fall. This is the benefit of using voter-led voter contact.
437 volunteers came out to canvass in Wisconsin in Milwaukee (where we are canvassing in African-American wards) and its suburbs (the WOW counties), as well as Kenosha, Waukesha and Dane counties. Hope Springs volunteers knocked on 32,643 doors and talked to 2,898 voters. 1,788 of those voters answered at least some of our questions on the Issues Survey.
The Economy Prices was the Top Concern among the Wisconsin voters we talked to on Saturday. Housing and/or Housing Insurance was the second most frequently cited concern. Political Violence was third.
Biden’s Approval numbers in Wisconsin was 50% last Saturday. His Disapproval number was 8%. Senator Baldwin’s Job Approval was 56% with 6% of the voters we talked to on Saturday expressing Disapproval. Approval of Governor Evers, meanwhile, was 50%; Disapproval was 12% last Saturday.
I do want to repeat that if you are interested in participating in our Postcards to New Voters Project, you can sign up here. (The diary on this can be found here.) We especially need help this year since we are not limiting our Postcards to New Voters effort to those new voters that Hope Springs or its partners registered to vote. Basically, every new voter in the swing Congressional Districts in our Swing States will be included in this effort for 2024.
And if you are able to support this kind of intensive grassroots organizing and voter contact, we would certainly appreciate your financial support:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/hopemobilization2024
We canvass with an Issues Survey that is our jumping off point of conversations with voters. We find this is an easy way to begin the canvass season. All the data we collect will be entered into VAN, the Democratic database.
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. We also ask voters if they have an problems that local, state or federal governments need to address in their neighborhoods.
But the main focus of our canvassing right now is the Issues Survey, asking voters for their input and concerns. We find that most voters who aren’t in a hurry or in the middle of something are willing to answer at least a couple of these questions, especially their top issue or concern and their views of President Biden. 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 from Field 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 when the Democratic campaigns start their own 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.
As you can see from the very first question in the Issues Questionnaire, making sure that voters are registered from their current address is a major function of early canvassing. In Florida, given the current laws, we offer up a tablet with the Secretary of State website up so that voters can register or update their information themselves. Part of this is making sure that voters are registered in compliance to the new, confusing and frustrating Election law that is particularly onerous for people who change residences more frequently than normal. But registering new voters (and re-registering existing voters at their current address, in compliance with HAVA) at their door is also critical to our approach. Arizona has a much more friendly voter registration system, including the ability to opt in to permanent early voting. Of course, canvassing 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.
In Florida, though, the new law requires voters to provide, in addition to their date of birth, the last four digits of their Social Security number OR their driver license OR state ID card number to make an address change. Which is par for the course this year, but here’s the part that is likely to stump people who move around. You have to remember which one you provided, because you have to provide the same one every single time you interact with your local Supervisor of Elections, or your request won’t be granted. Supervisors of Elections won’t have access to other databases, so they can only "verify” a request by the information the voter has provided. But this is something we have learned to track so that if the voter registration was not successful, we can go back.
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, but we also asked voters about their fears and experience in prior elections. So far there haven’t been significant changes in the laws but we still ask about fears and experience vis-a-vis elections. Voters who say they have experience voter intimidation or other problems with voting are asked to fill out Incident Reports.
Hope Springs has targeted states that have competitive Senate races and/or the Electoral College in 2024, as well as 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 these really, really onerous provisions, Hope Springs from Field seeks to undermine Republican efforts to throw Democrats off the voter rolls, informing voters about the new laws and regulations aimed at them. There’s a lot of work to be done, but fortunately, the three states that are making it most difficult are also states in which you can knock on doors at least 10 months out of the year. And, with your help, we will be there, getting our people to super-comply with these restrictive provisions.
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.
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 and we reach more voters. Which means we have to buy more lit to distribute and other minor expenses (like water for volunteers). We are starting earlier, and staying in the field longer, for this election year. 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 ActBlue page. Thank you for your support. This work depends upon you!