As regular readers know, on Fridays i like to highlight the state with the highest volunteer turnout on the prior Saturday. This week, the big Kahuna comes in right where you’d expect. Texas, with 573 volunteers outpaced Florida, which had 517. Quite frankly, it’s a little early to start hitting the five hundreds. Not that anyone will complain, but schools are still in session.
I don’t know what it is, but Hope Springs from Field PAC [dated website] volunteers keep showing up. And, to be honest, we have volunteers in Texas who feel like they are forgotten by the rest of the country. Even Austin, and we knock in Austin’s suburbia, feels remote or isolated from the America that feels betrayed by the pardoner of the January 20 traitors.
I’m in the valley this weekend (the Rio Grande Valley), although this diary is about last weekend. The only target, the only swingy Congressional District in Texas is TX-15 and the real under-the-radar target in Texas is the Senate race. And the reason for this speculation is the long-anticipated entry in the Republican primary of state Attorney General Ken Paxton against incumbent Senator John Cornyn.
The more endangered U.S. Sen. John Cornyn looks in early polling against Ken Paxton in the GOP primary, the more Democrats are buzzing.
While a Democrat has not won a U.S. Senate seat since Houston’s Lloyd Bentsen in 1988, Democrats are convinced Paxton has the type of political baggage that could boost the chances of whoever wins a Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate.
Paxton, 62, was impeached by the GOP-led Texas House in 2023. Nearly two dozen articles of impeachment were filed against Paxton, who was accused of bribery tied to an alleged affair, among other claims of impropriety. The Texas Senate later acquitted Paxton, but the details aired in 2023 damaged Paxton’s standing even with Republican voters, according to public polling.
I’d note that it is always difficult to beat an incumbent in the Senate, but it does happen. And Paxton seems to like his chances: “I honestly don’t see how [Cornyn] overcomes his numbers,” he told Punchbowl News.
New internal polls by both major parties show U.S. Sen. John Cornyn is in big trouble as he faces the toughest GOP primary opponent of his political career in 2026.
A Republican poll obtained exclusively by the Houston Chronicle show Cornyn is down against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton among likely GOP primary voters by 17 percentage points. A Democratic poll shows him down more than 20 percentage points.
So no surprise that Texas had to most volunteers last weekend, volunteers there are fired up. “There’s blood in the water,” a volunteer who’s helping me with travel this weekend wrote. If you look closely at the Senate map above, you will note that the hue of Texas has changed, reflecting potential vulnerability.
Hope Springs returned to Texas because the groups that thought we might dilute their financial base (which we didn’t) failed to incorporate our Issues Survey approach to voter contact. They just weren’t that interested in canvassing throughout the cycle — and i am sure they understood their volunteer base when they made that decision. But the fact is, we have volunteers who believe in this voter contact approach and share Warford’s belief that
If Democrats don’t invest in Texas now and begin reengaging with voters we lost, we risk missing the chance to build a lasting victory when national conditions shift and new presidential tickets scramble voting coalitions again.
We are modifying our strategy here from a Congressional District-based to one based on state legislative districts. TX-15 remains as a focus (it is the only technically competitive CD in the state), but considerable effort will be put into bringing the HSFF approach to state legislative districts that are (or should be) more competitive. Our Texas volunteers are determined to crack the MAGA hold on the state.
On Saturday, 573 volunteers showed up on Saturday and knocked on 42,230 doors. We talked to 3,462 voters and had in-depth conversations with 1,498 of them, guided by our Issues Questionnaire.
Hope Springs from Field PAC began knocking on doors again on March 1st. 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:
One thing we’ve added to our questionnaire: we are asking voters whether they approve of the administration’s cuts to federal programs and agencies. Given that we are talking to more unaffiliated voters this year, we are offering that as a way to screen MAGA-leaning voters that we talk to.
Other than that, the Issues Surveys aren’t really changing. We may modify it again, if necessary. Voters like to tell us what is important to them!
On Saturday, the Worry over Prices was the Number 1 issue for the Texans we talked on Saturday. Housing and Insurance Issues (ie, Rent, Single Home Availability and affordability of both Housing and Insurance) was the #2 issue voters raised on Saturday. Tariffs was third.
As i mentioned above, we are asking voters if they approve of the sudden and deep cuts in federal programs and agencies led by Elon Musk. Because we are in areas where Musk is a factor, there are voters who don’t want to talk about Musk or use hushed tones to do so. Very interesting here.
On Saturday, 3% approved of the DOGE reductions while 37% said they disapproved. 13% of the voters we talked to had a favorable impression of the job Trump was doing while 42% disapproved). We won’t know for awhile (given the newness of the question) whether these two questions are correlated.
4% of the voters who responded Approved of the job Sen. Cornyn was doing on Saturday while 47% expressed Disapproval. 4% approved of what Gov. Abbott was doing, and 51% disapproved. A lot of Democrats this week.
Hope Springs volunteers registered 28 new voters on Saturday. We re-registered 42 voters, who mainly updated their addresses.
In Texas, 239 voters filled out Constituent Service Request forms on Saturday. We sent 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.
6 voters filled out Incident Reports on Saturday. 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 knocked 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.
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.
Hope Springs has targeted states that have competitive Senate races and/or Congressional Races in 2026. 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 and helping them to check their current voter registration status, if they cannot access it online themselves.
Our biggest expense is Printing the Walk Lit that we leave at every door. Access to the Voter File is our second largest cost. 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.
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.
Hope Springs has been called “the most comprehensive, organized grassroots voter contact project out there right now. It is truly astonishing that it is grassroots-based!” Not sure why it is “astonishing,” but i probably have more faith in grassroots or self-organized efforts because of my experience with Barack Obama’s early days in 2007.
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/hopemobilization
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!
