This was our first canvass after the Fall of Roe. 80 new volunteers came out to knock on doors with Hope Springs from Field PAC last Saturday, and the surge in volunteers was diverse in age and ethnicity. But it seems our volunteer base is extending beyond the core of people known to organizers (iow, on our Obama and/or Dean Lists) to people known to our core volunteers.
281 volunteers came out to knock on doors on Saturday with Hope Springs from Field PAC. We are still knocking on doors in the silver “Toss Up” Congressional District (NC-13; an Open (R+3) where Democrat state Senator Wiley Nickel will compete against Bo Hines (R) in November) south of Raleigh, as well as in Robeson County (NC-07) and other areas that have historical incidents of voter suppression. We continue to use our Issues Questionnaire as a conversational tool, offer Constituent Service Request forms (and incident reports for those who have witnessed election malfeasance) and left our lit at every door on our lists.
Our very first priority in these Swing Senate State canvasses is making sure that everyone in the houses that opened their doors is registered to vote at their current address. Updating voter registration is just as important as getting unregistered people registered to vote, and only slightly more important than removing bad addresses from the VAN (the Democratic database). Removing bad addresses from VAN will make canvassing in the fall more efficient and productive for those who follow.
Inflation topped our list of concerns with the voters we talked to on Saturday. Reproductive Rights was the second most frequent response and Health Care was third. We heard a lot additional comments about Reproductive Rights and Gun Violence in the “Anything to add” or message to Congress query.
Voter views of President Biden have largely stabilized. 55% of the voters we talked to expressed approval of President Biden in North Carolina on Saturday. 12% expressed disapproval in the job the president was doing. Governor Cooper (who is term-limited and can’t run for re-election) had 59% job approval from the voters who answered their doors and responded to the questionnaire. Democratic Senate nominee Cheri Beasley had 73% approval.
Hope Springs from Field PAC has been knocking on doors in a grassroots-led effort to increase awareness of the fact that Democrats care about our voters and are working to protect their rights, and, in March, we will begin an even bigger effort. We are thinking about how to mitigate Voter Suppression efforts, get around them and make sure we have "super compliance," both informing and helping our voters meet the requirements and get out and vote. We are taking those efforts to the doors of the communities most effected (the intended targets or victims) of these new voter suppression laws.
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/2022senateswing
Hope Springs from Field PAC was started by former Obama Field Organizers because field was the cornerstone of our success. But the reason we won the Iowa Caucus in 2008 was because we registered voters and then turned them out! The approach we adopted was focused on listening, on connecting voters and their story to the candidate and our cause. Repeated face to face interactions are critical. And we are among those who believe that Democrats didn’t do as well in the 2020 Congressional races as expected because we didn’t knock on doors — and we didn’t register new voters (while Republicans dud). We are returning to the old school basics: repeated contacts, repeated efforts to remind them of protocols, meeting them were they are. Mentoring those who need it (like first time and newly registered voters). Reminding, reminding, reminding, and then chasing down those voters whose ballots need to be cured.
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. Far and away the number one issue that the voters we talked to in the Senate Swing States last year was inflation or price increases, and I imagine that concern has only increased.
Door to Door canvassing is the most effective way to reach voters but it is doubly important now since Democrats didn’t really do in-person canvassing in 2020. And, yet, we have found that voters missed that kind of in-person contact and ability to have a conversation about political issues and concerns. Our own experience knocking on doors in Texas and the Senate Swing States last year was that many Democrats and Independents felt more confident supporting candidates who sent people out into their neighborhoods asking for their support.
Hope Springs has targeted states that have competitive Senate races in 2022 as well as districts that are remapped in ways that offer opportunities or vulnerabilities for Democrats next year. As not every state has completed their re-maps, re-districting hasn’t yet made those opportunities/needs apparent. The Senate map started out clear. They may be changing. There are places we need to defend (Arizona, Nevada and Georgia) and there are opportunities. The open Senate seats of North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are such opportunities.
Especially in those areas, but really everywhere, we are also asking people who open their doors about whether they need services delivered to their neighborhood. 175 voters filled out Constituent Service Request forms last Saturday. In general, we send these 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 specifically ask voters in the Issues Survey if they have any concerns about the upcoming elections. Voters who tell us they have experience voter intimidation or other problems with voting are asked to fill out Incident Reports. We found 8 voters who wanted to fill out an Incident Report in North Carolina on Saturday. We collate these Incident Reports, to be shared with local, state and federal officials in charge of voting, as well as use them to plan out our Election Protection strategy in the fall. They could also be used in court cases.
But asking — and collecting — Incident Reports has a second purpose at this time. We are reminding voters that we care about Election Protection, that if they witness something, they can say something and it will matter. It also assures them that we are ready to do something if they see something.
Voter Suppression and Election Protection will be our central focus after Labor Day in 2022. 22 voters we talked to on Saturday filled out Incident Reports, providing witness accounts of problems they saw (mostly) in the primary election.
But the reason we organized as a federal PAC is so that we can get poll watcher credentials for November 2022. But after next Labor Day, we also hope to hand off any field organizers we hire to these Senate or other statewide campaigns, in part to help them understand the data we’ve collected and placed into VAN for their use. All the data we enter into VAN are classified as public, which will allow any Democratic candidate who uses VAN to access it. Laws pertaining to election protection changed in the rash of new election laws Republican legislatures passed this year and we would like to get ahead of that next year.
Hope Springs from Field PAC is trying to reinstitute best field practices, such as canvassing with people who look like the voters we are talking to and targeting former voters thrown off the rolls. A lot of these got forgotten because of the Covid restrictions in the last cycle, and we have an entire cycle of campaign staffers who were trained without the benefit of actually getting to do field. That’s why it is so important to start knocking on doors now, and not wait until a month or so before the primaries. We have a lot of make-up work to do. Can you help?
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 donate:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/2022senateswing
Thank you for your support. This work depends on you!
