One thing i try to mention whenever it happens is that we had volunteers see conservative org canvassers out there this weekend. And it can really freak out some of our volunteers. When our vols ask, we’ll tell them that they shouldn’t engage with them, although some of our feistier volunteers will (preferably in a friendly manner). Which is what happened last weekend in Ohio.
Since this was told to me third hand, i can only say i don’t know what started it. Either straight off or somewhere in the exchange, the Hope Springs vol asked the Republican canvassers (yes, plural) if they were “having a good week?” Now that seems innocent, right? In reply, these two young male Republicans said that they were being harassed!
In the past, i know that when i have engaged canvassers from the other side, it was generally pleasant exchanges. I’ve even gotten canvassers to show me their tech or their scripts. I’m willing to show ours. Or exchanged lit. And the reason why is that both sides knew their field organizers would ask about it the moment it got mentioned. Campaign intel, or something. It let us know when our opponents were in the field and often could explain things we would hear from voters we talked to.
My point here, which we already knew, is that (apparently) Republicans are being trained in “owning the libs.” Saying ‘hi’ is somehow offensive but you know cults, they are supposed to avoid outside contact. At least that’s the common belief. Or they want to intimidate us from knocking on doors in a swingy area (yeah, right!). I can’t really speak to their motivation but i know the group pulls their employees from the Leadership Institute, which does pretty extensive communications training for conservative groups and activists. Regardless, my takeaway here is that Republicans or their affiliated groups see Ohio as a key battleground state and are spending money there. So are we, but our ROI is much smaller. The couple thousand we have spent on voter file access and lit over the last couple of months might be equal to what they paid for just one of their canvassers cost them for that week.
And if they were trying to intimidate one of our volunteers from continuing to engage with his neighbors, well that didn’t work. Seemed to excite him. Make him more determined. “I have met the enemy and he is here!” Does Sherrod Brown have anything to worry about? Not yet!
But volunteers for Hope Springs from Field PAC in Pennsylvania and Ohio understand the stakes in this election. In Ohio, especially, they understand just how critical the results of their votes next November will be. In Pennsylvania, a lot of voters we have talked to think they know who the nominees will be, in other words, they have said they think the GOP primary is pre-determined. The non-Democrats we have engaged indicate they are waiting to see what David McCormick proposes and runs on. What is most interesting to me is that the Pennsylvanians we’ve talked to this year don’t believe that the incumbent (Bob Casey) has an inherent advantage because he is the sitting Senator. And it’s not because they think McCormick is a strong candidate (he lost the primary in 2022), or even that he is rich enough to fund his own race. Pennsylvania has a history of tossing out incumbent senators running for re-election, or at least a memory of doing so.
But our volunteers in Ohio seem more confident they are going to re-elect their senator than those in Pennsylvania seem. Which is odd, because the consensus is that Pennsylvania leans Dem while Ohio is a toss-up. But they tell us that people always underestimate Sherrod Brown. And no one says they are afraid of Matt Dolan, Bernie Moreno, Frank LaRose or Warren Davidson. Yet. (Sorry for the diatribe.)
437 volunteers showed up to knock on doors in Ohio on Saturday. We are knocking on doors in three Congressional Districts (OH-01 represented by Democrat Greg Landsman (the grey CD on the lower left), OH-09, Marcy Kaptur (the pink CD on the top left) and OH-13, Emilia Sykes (the grey CD on the top right)). They knocked on 30,458 doors on Saturday and talked to 2,174 voters. 1298 (a small decrease) of those voters answered at least some of our questions on the Issues Survey.
The Economy, including worries about whether their would still be jobs for those undergoing lengthy training right now, was the Top Concern in Ohio this week. Summer Concerns was the secondly most mentioned concern. We’ve been having this run of voters talking about Summer Camps and Public Pools, Summer Jobs for high school kids, etc that i can’t particularly explain — but voters keep talking about that. Reproductive Healthcare was the third most frequently mentioned concern, although barely exceeding comments about Trump.
Joe Biden’s Approval numbers among the Ohioans we talked to was 53% last Saturday; his Disapproval number fell to 9%. Senator Brown’s Job Approval was 60% with only 6% of the voters we talked to on Saturday expressing Disapproval. Approval of Governor DeWine, meanwhile, was 36%; Disapproval was 23% last Saturday. We have had a lot of comments about DeWine’s numbers, and his numbers have definitely dropped as the state legislature meet. But he does get quite a bit of support from voters who identify as independent or unaffiliated.
Hope Springs from Field volunteers registered 8 new voters. We also helped 41 more voters update their voter registration to comply with federal law. We differentiate between new voters registered and existing voters re-registering because we plan to continue our New Voter Postcard effort for newly registered voters, and even add Voter Video Chains this cycle.
111 voters filled out Constituent Service Request forms. We send 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 have even had candidates walk with Hope Springs volunteers because they had received one of these requests and wanted to understand how we collect them.
Hope Springs from Field PAC has been knocking on doors since March in a grassroots effort to prepare the 2024 Electoral Battleground in what has been called the First and Second Rounds of a traditional Five Round Canvass. We are canvassing 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.
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/fistfulofsteel
Hope Springs from Field PAC 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.
403 volunteers came out to knock on doors in Pennsylvania last Saturday. The grey Congressional Districts (PA-01, PA-07 & PA-17) represent most of where we are targeting, but we also walking on the Mainline and in minority neighborhoods in Philadelphia as well. Hope Springs volunteers knocked on 29,774 doors last Saturday and talked to 2,060 voters. 1271 of those voters answered questions to at least part of the Issues Survey.
Jobs was the most frequent response to our question about voter’s top concern on Saturday in Pennsylvania. Reproductive Healthcare was the second most frequent response this week, and there was quite a bit of variation how this was expressed, including comments about sending their daughters to college in states where they are more restricted. LGBT Rights was third, including concerns over the safety of this community outside the local area. Gay Pride parades were specifically mentioned.
Biden Approval among the Pennsylvanians we talked to continued to come in at 60% last Saturday while 7% expressed some measure of Disapproval. 64% of the voters who responded Approved of the job Sen. Casey was doing while 5% expressed Disapproval. 61% of the voters we talked to thought Gov. Shapiro was doing a good job, 6% said they Disapproved. This is the first time where all the Democrats we ask about were above 60%. But remember that each week, we are hitting doors in different neighborhoods, which can account for sharp deviations in results (although looking at the graphic, there doesn’t seem to be much variation here!). There is no effort to make these responses statistically significant. This is just raw data.
Volunteers registered 21 new voters in Pennsylvania (most of whom had turned 18 in the past year) and re-registered 36 voters in compliance with Federal (HAVA) law. We differentiate between the two because brand new voters are often ignored by campaigns and we hope to compensate for that somewhat by having volunteers send them post cards before the election and they are also getting robocalls thanking them for registering. But we are finding lots of teens who just turned legal age whose parents (primarily mothers) are insisting they register.
1 voter filled out an Incident Report (in Philadelphia) about issues they witnessed in a prior election. We have been building a database of Incident Reports, and reports we collected in Pennsylvania previously have been used to request an extension of time before a precinct closed.
94 voters filled out Constituent Service Request forms. We send completed CSRs to Democratic elected officials responsible for the requested functions, but if there are no Democrats who can further the request, and 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. 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 right now 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 2024, as well as Congressional 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 PAC seeks to undermine that strategy, while informing voters about the new laws and regulations aimed at them.
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/fistfulofsteel
Thank you for your support. This work depends upon you!