Weather wasn’t our biggest concern as we began our first canvasses of the year in Minnesota and New Hampshire. It was the fact that two Democratic Senators chose not to run for re-election. So we had targeted the weekend after Easter as our start date. We hoped, of course, the weather would cooperate. But we had volunteers eager to go, and, in Minnesota, we had some people telling us they still had their heated vests, “so let’s get on with it.”
Hope Springs from Field PAC’s [dated website] volunteers have been knocking on doors in (now) 11 states since March 1 (February 1st in FL-06). It’s been a cascading effort from south to north. Only Michigan and Wisconsin remain (although Wisconsin volunteers were already active in their April election).
We started off the year with no plans to return to Minnesota. But Tina Smith chose to forego running for re-election, and Minnesota volunteers decided to renew the effort. Perhaps because Republicans in the state were crowing about Smith’s decision.
As Nathan Gonzales notes:
Vice President Kamala Harris’ 51-47 percent victory over Donald Trump in 2024 masks the challenge Republicans have statewide. Democrats’ advantage in Minnesota has been fairly stable over the last decade. They had an 8-point Baseline advantage after the 2014 elections compared to a 7-point advantage today.
But Minnesota is not overwhelmingly Democratic and the open seat creates uncertainty. So we’re changing our rating from Solid Democratic to Battleground.
But who wants to take a chance? Not our volunteers in Minnesota.
118 volunteers came out to knock on doors in Minnesota in 3 canvasses there. We knocked on 8,637 doors and volunteers talked to 700 voters, one of whom asked, “Aren’t you a bit early (in the cycle — it was 11:47 am) for this?” 447 of those voters answered questions to at least part of the Issues Survey.
Worries over Prices was the Number 1 Issue in Minnesota on Saturday. Tariffs was second. Housing Availability, Costs and Housing Insurance Costs Issues was third.
We’ve added one thing to our questionnaire: we are asking voters whether they approve of the administration’s cuts to federal programs and agencies. Given that we are talking to more unaffiliated voters this year, we are offering that as a way to screen MAGA-leaning voters that we talk to.
Other than that, the Issues Surveys aren’t really changing. We may modify them again, if necessary. Voters like to tell us what is important to them!
As i mentioned above, we ask voters if they approve of the sudden and deep cuts in federal programs and agencies led by Elon Musk. 2% of the Minnesota voters who responded said they viewed these cuts in a favorable light, 41% thought just the opposite — unprompted, some mentioned cuts to Social Security services as problematic. 3% of the voters we talked to had a favorable impression of the job Trump was doing (52% disapproved). We won’t know for awhile (given the newness of the question) whether these two are correlated. 55% had a favorable impression of Gov. Walz while 3% disapproved.
We re-registered 1 voter and 22 voters completed Constituent Service Request forms.
Hope Springs from Field PAC began knocking on doors again on March 1st. We target 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. 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/hopemobilization
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.
New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen announced she wouldn’t seek reelection in mid-March and two names quickly emerged as the candidates to watch, both named Chris. Republican Chris Sununu had won four terms as governor and had left office with high approval ratings. And Chris Pappas, the Democrat who had held New Hampshire’s 1st CD since 2018 when he became the first openly gay man elected to represent New Hampshire in Congress. In the end, Sununu announced he won’t run for Senate in 2026.
At the beginning of the month Pappas jumped into the race. If elected, he would be the first openly gay male U.S. senator. Republican Tejasinha Sivalingam, who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination in the 2022 U.S. Senate election, is the only other announced candidate so far.
48 volunteers came out to knock on doors in New Hampshire in 2 canvasses there. We had canvassed briefly there last year at the request of the (then) Biden campaign, so we had a small core to start with (We won’t have the benefit of that in Maine). We knocked on 3,480 doors and volunteers talked to 288 voters. 183 of those voters answered questions to at least part of the Issues Survey.
Inflation was the #1 Issue in New Hampshire on Saturday. Tariffs was the Second most cited Issue.
5% of the New Hampshire voters we talked to said they viewed these cuts in a favorable light (far fewer than i expected), 44% thought the DOGE cuts to Social Security services et al was problematic. 11% of the voters we talked to had a favorable impression of the job Trump was doing while 42% disapproved. 21% had a favorable impression of Gov. Ayotte while 28% disapproved.
Hope Springs volunteers registered 1 new 18 yo and re-registered 4 voters, who mainly updated their addresses as required by law. 11 voters filled out Constituent Service Request forms. We sent completed CSRs to Democratic elected officials responsible for the requested functions, but if 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.
We knock on the doors of Democratic and Independent voters and use a voter-driven approach to guide them through the Issues Survey, the CSR and Incident Report. 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 Congressional Races in 2026. 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 and helping them to check their current voter registration status, if they cannot access it online themselves.
Our biggest expense is Printing the Walk Lit that we leave at every door. We printed more than 720,000 pieces of Walk Lit last year for Arizona. Access to the Voter File is our second largest cost. But it is also a fixed cost. That won’t change as we raise and spend more money. 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 eventually.
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.
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/hopemobilization
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!
