Of course, Montana is not alone here. Both Arizona and Nevada are keys to success in 2024. All three are vital to Democrat’s possession of the Senate, and Arizona and Nevada remain so to President Biden’s hope to hold the Electoral College. This is a hold election, and Democrats are seeing it as such.
Conclusion: A narrow battlefield
We have previously noted that only seven states were decided by less than three points in 2020: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. This represents the real battlefield: Particularly if the race is a Biden vs. Trump redux, we would be surprised if any other state flipped from 2020 outside of this group.
Even then, we’re not even sure that all of these seven states are truly in doubt. After all, we’re starting three of the seven in the Leans category (Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania).
This all underscores the reality that despite the nation being locked in a highly competitive era of presidential elections, the lion’s share of the individual states are not competitive at all.
Biden won all six out of seven of those states in 2020, generally by very slim margins. Hope Springs from Field volunteers have been knocking on the doors of Democrats and independent or unaffiliated voters since March of this year (weather permitting, of course).
We have been canvassing in Arizona since March 11th (and in Nevada since April). Last Saturday, 362 volunteers came out to knock on doors in the eastern suburbs of Phoenix and Tucson under pretty miserable conditions in the Arizona’s 1st, 4th and 6th Congressional Districts. We started earlier than prior weeks in order to be done around noon. Several groups of volunteers used cooling vehicles to canvass, which meant they were only outside for about 30 minutes at a time.
Hope Springs volunteers knocked on 24,543 doors and talked to 1,801 voters. 1055 of those voters filled out at least part of the Issues Survey.
You won’t be surprised but the Heatwave was the Number 1 issue for the Arizonans we talked to on Saturday. Last week, it was potable water but voters voiced concerns about our volunteers being out in the heat, and more than a few offered for volunteers to come inside their homes to talk (we don’t generally recommend this). Healthcare Costs was the #2 issue voters raised. And The Economy was the third most frequently raised issue on Saturday.
Among the Arizonans we talked to Biden’s Job Approval was at 52%; 12% expressed some measure of Disapproval (down from last week). 6% of the voters who responded Approved of the job Sen. Sinema was doing while 40% expressed Disapproval. We ask ask about whether voters Approve of likely Democratic nominee Ruben Gallego. 48% of the voters we talked to had a positive impression of the Congressman. (We are not asking about disapproval of the Congressman yet.)
50% of the voters we talked to thought Gov. Hobbs was doing a good job, 12% said they disapproved of the job she was doing. Because some of our volunteers want to compare Sinema disapproval numbers to Rep. Ruben Gallego’s approval numbers, we include it here (as we will each week).
Hope Springs from Field volunteers registered 12 new voters (Summer seems to be a great time to find and register people who just turned 18!) and registered 57 voters who updated their addresses (or updated their voter registration to participate in the Active Early Voting List — the latter skews the number higher). We differentiate between the new voters and re-registering voters 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 will also receive robocalls thanking them for registering.
In Arizona, we had 94 voters fill 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.
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.
329 volunteers turned up to knock on doors in the Las Vegas and Reno region. They knocked on 23,161 doors and talked to 1,769 voters. 1036 of those voters answered at least some of our questions on the Issues Survey.
The Top 3 Issues canvassers found in Nevada last weekend were, first, Jobs. Not just Summer Jobs but Jobs in general. Economic Uncertainty was Second. Voters do seem very frustrated by their lack of confidence in the economy. After Covid, they really want things to “return to normal,” and it is hard to tell from our conversations who or what they blame for this lack of certainty. All things Trump was Third. The indictment, things he continues to say on the campaign trail — the fact that he is campaigning at all. “When’s it going to stop?” one voter asked.
Biden’s Approval numbers among the Nevadans we talked to was at 55% last Saturday, with a Disapproval number of 8%. Senator Rosen had an Approval rating of 57% with 6% of the voters we talked to on Saturday expressing Disapproval. Approval of Governor Lombardo was 26% and Disapproval was 21% last Saturday. Lombardo’s numbers definitely vary according to what percentage of voters we canvass in Reno are included!
Volunteers registered 3 new voters and re-registered 29 voters. 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.
43 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.
3 voters filled out Incident Reports about issues they witnessed in a prior election. We continue to see voters who want to fill out an Incident Report but realize they didn’t actually witness something to report. Nevada and North Carolina seem to lead the states where we canvass in this regard. We have been building a database of Incident Reports, and reports we collected in Nevada have been used successfully to request a time extension for voters before a polling precinct closed.
If you support grassroots organizing to increase voter participation and election protection, expand the electorate and prepare the electoral battlefield for Democrats, please help:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/fistfulofsteel
78 volunteers showed up for our kickoff canvass in the Bozeman/Butte and Missoula areas on Saturday. Senator Tester is running for re-election and is considered among the most vulnerable Democrats running in 2024. Tester has his own support network that is largely independent of the Democratic party and our effort is designed to reinforce that supporter network among (mostly) independent voters in Montana. We start a little later in the day here, meeting up at 11am instead of 9 (Arizona) or 10, depending on the weather forecast.
They knocked on 5,257 doors on Saturday and talked to 390 voters. 243 of those voters answered at least some of our questions on the Issues Survey.
You may have noticed that our volunteer recruitment in Montana has not been as successful as Hope Springs has been elsewhere. We haven’t had the kind of exponential growth we have witnessed elsewhere. It has been more difficult because we didn’t really start with much of a list in the first place. Kinda making it up as we go along.
The Credit Crunch, specifically from variable rate loans, was the Top Concern. Several (!) voters even specifically mentioned keeping an eye on the Fed’s next announcement here. I can’t say that this has ever come up before. Recession Worries was the second most frequently cited concern. These are probably related. Schools and Taxes (as opposed to Hospitals!) was the third most frequently mentioned concern.
Joe Biden’s Approval numbers was 43% last Saturday; his Disapproval number was 19%. Senator Tester’s Job Approval was 64% with 7% of the voters we talked to on Saturday expressing Disapproval. Approval of Governor Gianforte, meanwhile, was 19%; Disapproval was 32% last Saturday.
Hope Springs from Field volunteers registered 2 new voters on Saturday and helped 11 voters update the voter registration to comply with federal law. 14 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!