Democrats have Done the Work in Wisconsin: Bring It On Home (HS' Final Canvass Report here)

One of the states that pushed the hardest for the 10 Million Doors Knocked by Labor Day goal was Wisconsin.  So it didn’t surprise me that Wisconsin had the second highest volunteer turnout on Saturday.  “We knew we were close,” one of our organizers texted back when i let them know we had made it.  “But we pushed people really hard.  Somehow, i doubt our volunteers felt pushed.  The Harris Energy is real.

Here’s the thing.  Hope Springs from Field PAC [website] is grassroots-driven and when the grassroots wants to do something, we just facilitate that, as long as they fit within our core missions.  Clearly, Knocking on 10 Million Doors fit within our mission!

The Freedom message of the Harris campaign really fits Wisconsin, especially outside of Milwaukee.  The suburbs in these areas have been red in the past, purplish more recently and growing more blue every day it seems.

One thing about Wisconsin is that we’ve been knocking on doors here since Hope Springs started.  One ramification of this is that we have more volunteers take “challenge turf” than in any other state.

“Challenge turf” is basically turf cut to my specifications.  I’ve been knocking on doors since 1972 (for Bill Nelson’s first campaign) and i’ve continued to do so in every cycle since.  I’ve honed my technique, and taken on a few “who can knock on the most doors” challenges over time.  It’s one of the reasons why i try to fly out to these different states in the Spring and Summer.

You may or may not remember that Hope Springs from Field has a system of increasing the amount of doors included in turf each month.  55 doors in March, 65 doors in April, 75 doors in May and 85 doors in June.  Challenge turf is 125 doors.  Make it worth my while, as it were (125 is about a third of the number of doors i’ve knocked on in my “recording setting” days, lol).  

Believe it or not, there are people who think that can out-knock me (at my age, people do) and regularly take out “challenge turfs” week in and week out.  And want to compete when i come out.  For all i know, they might even compete amongst themselves when i’m not.  A  little fun amongst ourselves, but it is one reason why we hit a lot of doors.  And a lot of doors was needed last Saturday because there turned out to be a lot of obstacles to reaching 10M doors by Labor Day.

My point, of course, is that we had 47 volunteers take out “challenge turfs” this year in Wisconsin, the most of any state.

Wisconsin remains equally focused on their local expectations in this year’s election.  Court-imposed re-districting has given Democrats the chance to win majorities in their state bodies, and volunteers here don’t want it to do to waste.  Some of our volunteers even leave Democratic legislative lit at the doors they knock on, although i’d argue it might be a bit early for doing so.  But we don’t stop them.  (Some of them even ask voters about their impressions of local candidates, but some of the volunteers have also found that intimidating because local candidates don’t usually have the same name recognition that federal candidates do.)

1,242 volunteers came out to canvass in Wis-consin on Saturday.  We continue to canvass in Milwaukee (where we are canvassing in African-American wards with primarily Black volun-teers) and its suburbs (the WOW counties), as well as Racine, Kenosha and Dane counties.  The key Democratic and swing areas of this Senate Swing State.  Last Saturday was our last day of knocking here, and we expect all our volunteers to transition over to the Coordinated Campaign and WisDems.

Hope Springs volunteers knocked on 92,901 doors and talked to 7,682 voters.  4,878 of those voters answered at least some of our questions on the Issues Survey.

The Economy was the Top Concern among the Wisconsin voters we talked to on Saturday. Housing and Insurance Issues (ie, Rent, Single Home Availability and affordability of both Housing and Insurance) was the second most frequently cited concern.  It’s been a pretty sticky issue with voters this year, not just in Wisconsin.  Political Violence, which is an element of the Concern for our Democracy, was third.

External data suggests there are strong reasons why Housing-related issues are coming to the forefront.  Affordability is definitely an issue in Wisconsin, as rate increases in Housing Insurance has been elsewhere.  But we bundle these issues together, because Availability has also been raised in almost every state as an issue as well.  Not that there are obvious federal solutions to these issues, but they are legitimate concerns that voters are talking about at their doors.

Hope Springs from Field PAC began knocking on doors again on March 2nd to set up a favorable “battle space” or foundation for Democrats in 2024.  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 in these 12 Swing States 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), GOTV and our efforts to protect our voters, we would certainly appreciate your support:

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/hopemobilization2024

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.

Kamala Harris’ Approval numbers in Wisconsin remained steady this week, 84% last Saturday; his Disapproval number was 3%.  Tammy Baldwin’s Approval fell a point, 68% with 4% of the voters we talked to on Saturday expressing Disapproval.  Approval of Governor Evers, meanwhile, was 54%; Disapproval was 6% last Saturday.

Hope Springs from Field volunteers registered 53 new voters and re-registered 88 voters who updated their addresses for the voter file to comply with federal law.  The new voters were pretty widely dispersed, both racially and geographically.  

488 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 increasingly have local Democratic elected officials and prospective candidates join our Saturday canvasses just because they hear about these CSRs.

As inferred above, Wisconsin is a state where we have had a lot of positive comments about the Constituent Service Request forms, and, boy, did they want them on Saturday!

9 voters in Wisconsin completed an Incident Reports, mostly in an African-American neighborhood in Milwaukee but we had a couple in the Madison area.  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.  (We also make Issues Surveys, Incident Reports and Constituent Service Request forms available at the churches we visit, but we don’t include numbers for those, in part because we don’t always get counts back, but also because we like to compare like to like.)

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 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.

We are also — this being an election year — adding the Post Cards to New Voters component back into our Voter Outreach, both New Voters we find at their doors as well as New Voters we target in the Voter File.  Our biggest expense is the Voter File.  But it is also a fixed cost.  That won’t change as we raise and spend more money.  Printing literature is our second largest cost.  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.

      2023 Hope Springs expenses

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.

But here’s the reality: Identifying Single Issue Voters and Constitutional Amendment supporters and doing GOTV (Get-Out-the-Vote) costs us more money than our regular canvassing because this issue drives volunteer turnout higher and higher.  Which means we have to buy more lit to distribute and other minor expenses (like water for volunteers).  So please:

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/hopemobilization2024

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!