Texas is the biggest (or most populated) state where Hope Springs from Field PAC [dated website, to be updated this Fall] volunteers knock on doors. It’s no surprise when it is the state with the highest volunteer turnout on the prior Saturday. As regular readers know, on Fridays i like to highlight the state where the most volunteers turned out. And, again, this week, the big Kahuna comes in right where you’d expect. Texas, with 573 volunteers outpaced Florida, which had 517. Quite frankly, it’s a little early to start hitting the five hundreds. Not that anyone will complain, but schools are still in session.
Texas and Florida seem to be the most controversial choices to target by those people who live outside those states. Even to those who live in deep red districts inside those states! Hope Springs volunteers have oft questioned why they can’t get more “outside-the-state” support for efforts to organize their states.
Yet both these states are on track to gain 4 seats in Congress (and the Electoral College) in the next remap, while blue California is likely to lose 4 seats. Given the fact that we have grassroots volunteers here willing to knock on doors, the question really should be, why not?
But there’s more to it.
President Trump’s political team is encouraging Republican leaders in Texas to examine how House district lines in the state could be redrawn ahead of next year’s midterm elections to try to save the party’s endangered majority, according to people in Texas and Washington who are familiar with the effort.
The push from Washington has unnerved some Texas Republicans, who worry that reworking the boundaries of Texas House seats to turn Democratic districts red by adding reliably Republican voters from neighboring Republican districts could backfire in an election that is already expected to favor Democrats.
Rather than flip the Democratic districts, new lines could endanger incumbent Republicans.
It’s serious: “Republicans from Texas’ congressional delegation met at the U.S. Capitol Monday night to discuss a proposal to redraw the lines of their House districts.” “It appeared to be driven in part by President Trump’s concern that the Republican Party could lose its slim majority in the House… those pushing for the plan believe that Republicans could potentially pick up as many as four or five House seats in 2026, according to two of the people with knowledge of the discussions.” But doing so would require the Texas Legislature to approve new maps and since the Legislature is not in session again until 2027, Gov. Greg Abbott would have to call a special session.
Flipping Texas is a perennial Democratic dream, but core constituencies have moved further to the right, and Democrats haven’t held a Senate seat in the state since 1993. The state’s expensive media markets require fundraising prowess. That leaves the party with a crowded field of interested candidates, but none with a proven track record of winning statewide. Plenty of Democrats are skeptical they’d even win against Paxton, whose nomination isn’t guaranteed.
And the Cornyn-Paxton is starting to look decidedly one-sided (although Cornyn will fight until his last breathe and i wouldn’t count him out yet): “Texas Republicans’ messy Senate primary is giving Democrats hope that they could finally have an opening to wedge into higher office in the red state — for real this time… Democrats acknowledge they’d stand little chance of unseating Cornyn, who’s been a fixture in Texas politics for decades.” I’d note that it is always difficult to beat an incumbent in the Senate, but it does happen.
Hope Springs returned to Texas because the groups that thought we might dilute their financial base (which we didn’t) failed to incorporate our Issues Survey approach to voter contact (as they promised). And they weren’t interested in canvassing throughout the cycle — i have no doubt they understood their own volunteer base when they made that decision. But the fact is, we have volunteers who believe in this voter contact approach and share Warford’s belief that
If Democrats don’t invest in Texas now and begin reengaging with voters we lost, we risk missing the chance to build a lasting victory when national conditions shift and new presidential tickets scramble voting coalitions again.
We are modifying our strategy here from a Congressional District-based to one based on state legislative districts. We continue to knock on doors in TX-15 and have added TX-28 & TX-34, but considerable effort will be put into bringing the HSFF approach to state legislative districts that are (or should be) more competitive. Our Texas volunteers are determined to crack the MAGA hold on the state and want to make the Republican fear that redistricting will actually benefit Democrats!
On Saturday, 713 volunteers showed up on Saturday and knocked on 51,122 doors. We talked to 4,192 voters and had in-depth conversations with 2,682 of them, guided by our Issues Questionnaire.
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:
One thing we’ve added 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 it again, if necessary. Voters like to tell us what is important to them!
On Saturday, the Worry over Prices was the Number 1 issue for the Texans we talked on Saturday. Tariffs was the #2 issue voters raised on Saturday. Concern over the future of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid was third. Lots of voters specifically mentioned Medicaid in the Rio Grande Valley.
As i mentioned above, we are asking voters if they approve of the sudden and deep cuts in federal programs and agencies led by Elon Musk. Because we are in areas where Musk is a factor, there are voters who don’t want to talk about Musk or use hushed tones to do so. Very interesting here.
On Saturday, 2% approved of the budget cuts in the reconciliation package while 24% said they disapproved. Voters are losing interest in DOGE. 11% of the voters we talked to had a favorable impression of the job Trump was doing while 48% disapproved). And this was before all the commotion happening in LA.
5% of the voters who responded Approved of the job Sen. Cornyn was doing on Saturday while 43% expressed Disapproval. 4% approved of what Gov. Abbott was doing, and 49% disapproved. This week had the highest concentration this year of minority (mostly Hispanic) voters.
Hope Springs volunteers registered 41 new voters on Saturday, primarily African-American due to our special voter registration project relying on HBCU and Divine Nine volunteers. We re-registered 36 voters, who mainly updated their addresses.
In Texas, 402 voters filled out Constituent Service Request forms on Saturday. 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.
13 voters filled out Incident Reports on Saturday. 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 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. 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!
