Tonight’s mission is simple: Tag every door (for our 1s and 2s) and plant a marker at the entrance of every supporter home (usually a driveway). An auxilory mission is to locate the “front” door if a prior canvasser has not done so.
flag marker we place to help Tuesday’s vols find “our” houses
By tagging, we mean placing a final piece of GOTV on the door voters actually use. By a marker, we mean pkacing a small American flag at (generally) the driveway of our voters. And, for those 1s and 2s were somebody hadn’t already, locate the actual door voters use, make an Observation sheet on it, as well as any helpful driving instructions to find the home.
Tomorrow our GOTV canvassers (or runners) will knock on their doors at least 3 times (until we are told that everyone in the home has voted).
Almost none of those volunteers who’ve canvassed with Hope Springs this year have failed to sign up for GOTV (get-out-the-vote) shifts for tomorrow. You may want to read that sentence again. These are Democrats and progressives in reddish to purple areas who are volunteering on Election Day to Get Out the Vote. We’ve quite proud of this, because that means we instilled the priority of GOTV over everything else in our volunteers.
Hope Springs from Field 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 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:
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.
Yes, we really need your help here! Our printer’s bills are — like most things — much higher than we had anticipated for the year. Adding extra states (like California) did not help the budget!
What this means is that we have more than 1,250 volunteers signed up for our GOTV shifts tomorrow. But that’s when the fun starts! And around 150 volunteers have signed up for Hope Springs’ Friday Night Lights GOTV Lit Drop (and Flag Placement).
We are intentionally doing this in the dark, as it were, because that tests the ability of an ordinary volunteer to find the voter’s house in challenging conditions. Depending on the length of time polls will be open, runners will knock on doors of our voters 3-4 times on Election Day, until they have voted. My wife loves this aspect of the campaign because she says it proves that i approve of nagging as a tactic. I am too smart to reply to this.
But these volunteers take on great weight for our GOTV program. They deliver a piece of lit or doorhanger, decide where to place a flag and make notes for Tuesday’s runners.
Are you ready? Because Hope Springs volunteers are!
How do i know this? Well, we’ve had a lot of volunteer chatter this week. People have texted and emailed, sometimes asking for my take on Tuesday and a lot of times it seems like they wanted to pep me up.
But Tuesday is Voter Mobilization Day! I've done this long enough to realize that Election Day is really Election Month or Week, depending on where you live — and that Election Day doesn’t always mean it is over.
Regardless, on Tuesday, Hope Springs will run 3 or 4 GOTV shifts knocking on the doors of our supporters who haven’t voted yet, to remind them this is it! We tell supporters to show us their “I’ve Voted” sticker and we’ll remove you from our nag list — we don’t come back. Better to chase those who haven’t voted yet, anyway.
Some of you will probably attend Election Night Victory Parties to celebrate. God Bless You. I’ll be asleep, i promise you, on the plane. More than likely i won’t be able to tonight, too much to do. Too many nervous organizers and campaign staffers trying to break through my cell phone. But here’s the thing: despite all the good intentions of our Hope Springs’ volunteers and, tbh, concern about my health, we are leaving it all on the floor. Leaving. It. All. On. The. Floor. Nothing else we could do. Run through the tape. [i will post as i am able but...]
Printing the literature we leave at voter’s doors (or hands) has been our largest expense this year. Our second 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 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.
No other Democratically-aligned org has been methodically trying to circumvent MAGA efforts to rig the House Midterm elections. And we need your help to continue. Our printer costs alone are way beyond our budgeting.
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/UNRIGtheMidterms
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!
