California. Best of the Week

As many of you know, on Fridays i like to recognize the Hope Springs from Field PAC volunteers from the state with the highest turnout on the prior Saturday.  Last week, that was California.

Now we can’t be surprised.  California is the biggest state in the middle of a highly contentious election.  Democrats are eager to send president felon a message and Californians have that opportunity.

          Prop 50 Map to be voted on

Not only are we canvassing on Satur-days but every day of the week until Election Day.  So people were primed to turn out on Saturday.

We were originally asked to canvass Northern California to find 9,300 Prop 50 voters.  We’ve blown way beyond that — it’s now over 30,000 in the NorCal areas we are canvassing.  It does help that people/voters see this as a reaction to what Texas (and presi-dent felon) did — lots of people have told us they feel forced to vote for it as an appropriate response to how Republicans are trying to “rig this election (or Congress  — we get both).”

Hope Spring’s volunteers have now talked to more than 109,208 voters in Northern California since Labor Day. Our GOTV list has grown significantly.  We now have 32,693 1s (people who strongly support Prop 50 in Northern California and pledged to vote in this upcoming election) on our list of supporters.  And our list of 2s (likely supporters) has now doubled to more than 23,785.

          New Maps Partisan Breakdown

We continue to find more people who say they aren’t going to vote than the 638 voters who have told us they are voting against Prop 50.  Several thousand have told us they aren’t voting.  Yes, we track that, too.

We continue to be grateful for support from Reno area volunteers and we have brought in a few of our Super-Volunteers from Georgia and Ohio.  Being around “winners,” people with experience in the system, has proven to be helpful and energizing in the past.  Although several of our volunteers asked if anyone has been involved in Tom Suozzi’s victory (which is interesting).  But that shows that people follow politics.

On Saturday, 2,362 volunteers came out to knock on doors in Northern California in what will become CA-01, CA-02, CA-03 and CA-04 if Prop 50 is successful (see map above).  These are basically red districts that should go Blue in Congress, and our task is to hunt down Democrats and progres-sive voters who support Prop 50, and build a GOTV database before Novem-ber 4th.  We are incorporating the lessons learned in the Ohio Issue 1 fight to guide our GOTV plan here.

389 of these volunteers came from the Reno area to knock on doors here.  They got up pretty early to make the trip, too.

Volunteers knocked on 141,011 doors and talked to 11,844 voters.  7,817 of them spent time discussing the issue with a volunteer, although we have had voters give us immediate responses on the proposition before shutting the door, which was also recorded in VAN.

Hope Springs from Field PAC began knocking on doors in California after Labor Day, in support of Prop 50.  We target Democrats and unaffiliated voters with a systematic approach that reminds them not only that Democrats care, but that Democrats are determined to deliver the best government possible to all Americans.  The voters we talk to continue to tell us they come away more invested in governance and feel more favorably towards Democrats in general because of our approach.

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/UNRIGtheMidterms

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.

Yes, we really need your help here!  Our printer’s bills are — like most things — much higher than we had anticipated for the year.  Adding extra states (like California) did not help the budget!

We use the Issue Survey as a kind of soft introduction to the political discussion.  Because these are reddish areas, we’ve found that it breaks down voter resistance to airing their views.

As part of the Issue Survey, we ask voters about what is most important to them.  On Saturday, High Prices and concern over the rising Cost of Living was the #1 issue voters brought up in Northern California.   Redis-tricting was second and The Budget Crisis was third.

Here’s the thing: we aren’t knocking on doors in traditionally Blue Districts.  Those mostly hug the coast.  California Democrats cover those areas superbly.  What we are committed to doing is finding Democratic voters who support Prop 50 in the pink and red districts — mainly those who are slated to become Blue in the new map (basically the new CD’s CA-01, CA-02, CA-03 and CA-04 in the map above).

We continue to include the DOGE question as a way to weed out any hidden MAGA supporters.  1% of the voters we talked to supported deep cuts in federal spending.  20% were opposed.  3% approved of the job Trump was doing while 62% disapproved.  These two numbers tell us that our targeting was on point (an important consideration in a new state).  58% of the voters we talked to approved of the job that Gov. Newsom is doing, which seems really high for his area.  4% disapproved.  The latter tells us that our targeting has improved.

Note the two top lines.  The dark green line at the top is the Trump Disapproval number.  The Black line right under it is Newsom’s Approval number.  They seem in sync.  You can track the progress of this election with these two numbers.

We are basically re-running the plan Hope Springs’ volunteers used in Ohio in 2023 — when we turned counties from red to blue in that special election for Issue #1 (Right to Abortion).

We knock on doors of Democratic and Independent voters and use a voter-driven approach to guide them through the Issues Survey, the CSR and Incident Reports.  

We record questions voters raise with a Q(uestion)-slip and record other relevant observations on an Observations form.  Q-slips are sent to the relevant Democrat to respond to and Observations are entered into VAN.  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 2026, as well as districts that are remapped in ways that offer opportunities or vulnerabilities for Democrats next year.  There is a lot of work to be done!

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 eventually.  We are a bottom up project, one that doesn't just help Democratic presidential, senate and house candidates, but every Democrat running for office in these swing state areas (who uses VAN).

Hope Springs has been called “the most comprehensive, organized grassroots voter contact project out there right now.  It is truly astonishing that it is grassroots-based!”  Not sure why it is “astonishing,” but i probably have more faith in grassroots or self-organized efforts because of my experience with Barack Obama’s early days in 2007.

No other Democratically-aligned org has been methodically trying to circumvent MAGA efforts.  And we need your help to continue.  Our printer costs alone are way beyond our budgeting.

If you are able to support Hope Springs from Field’s efforts to protect Democratic voters, especially in minority communities, expand the electorate, and believe in grassroots efforts to increase voter participation and election protection, we would appreciate your support:

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/UNRIGtheMidterms

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!