No one’s ever going to accuse me of being shy about credit-taking. Indeed, i have a politico friend back in Illinois who will point out that tendency anytime he recommends my work to another candidate. But our former boss told him he’d never know all the things i did in that campaign because of my oppo work — which i also crow about (that it worked, not what i did).
I just know how to keep their secrets.
I had a long conversation yesterday with one of our Hope Springs from Field PAC organizers who had worked on Taylor Rehmet’s campaign. If you don’t know, Rehmet won a state Senate seat in a North Texas district that President Trump won by 17 points in 2024 — a stunning upset that has been reverberating around Texas and Democratic circles for a week.
He said he called me to thank Hope Springs for three reasons: first, they found ~45,000 voters in the district from our prior canvasses in Tarrant County with favorable (to the Democrat’s) views on Trump, affordability and education. 54% of these were unaffiliated voters. 34% were Hispanic voters. Rehmet received 56,565 votes in the runoff.
Secondly, they pulled “well-trained volunteers” from our Hope Springs canvasses, some of whom passed along our “8 second rule” to other volunteers they walked with. He also mentioned that they had Hope Springs volunteers who repeatedly asked for “more doors” and larger turfs when they volunteered. He said he remembered a conversation with a volunteer who looked askance at a piece of turf with 42 doors, and tried to convince him to give him a second piece of turf close to the one in his hand before he found a larger piece of turf for the volunteer to walk. He said they started cutting 60-68 door turfs to include each weekend for these “eager volunteers”
“And they didn’t mind tackling the ‘trash turf,’” a term we use for leftover houses when we cut turf.
He told me that the data we had collected in our Issues Survey canvasses allowed the Rehmet campaign to narrow their own target lists for canvassing. The electorate was majority Republican, but with a healthy share to unaffiliated voters.
Finally, he said their volunteers liked the notes (or observations) that Hope Springs volunteers had left in VAN. “These were enormously valuable to their canvassers who knew how to find them. “Especially in our Get-Out-the-Vote efforts. I wished everyone would do that!”
Part of the strategy of using (and inputting) canvasser observations, though, is Hope Springs’ use of the Q(uestion)-Slip. We train our volunteers to focus on listening, especially in our Early Organizing work, and recording voter responses. But it’s also a conversation, and these conversations can lead to questions by voters about this or that.
An important part of our “we’re listening” strategy is to record voter questions and allow “experts” — not canvassers — to answer them. The Rehmet campaign also employed this strategy — but Taylor Rehmet was the expert. So instead of writing out Q-Slips for later responses, the Rehmet campaign called up Taylor from the voter’s door, and let him talk to the voter right then and answer their question.
He also told me that the Rehmet campaign adopted our shifting yard signs strategy for their canvasses. “This saved us money — and we didn’t have a lot of that” (money). Rehmet reported raising about $380,000, mostly in smaller donations while Republicans spent over $2.5m between the campaign and affiliated political committees (according to campaign filings).
Hope Springs from Field PAC starts knocking on doors March 7th this year. We will continue to target Democrats and unaffiliated voters with our systematic approach that reminds them not only that Democrats care, but that Democrats are determined to deliver the best, most affordable 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:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/UNRIGtheMidterms
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!
A core element of what Hope Springs from Field does is to leave something behind, whether it is data made available to Democratic candidates, skilled volunteers or that confidence that comes from knowing that Democrats can compete even in these historically red districts.
We know that aggressive voter contact efforts like ours can shape electorates, especially in hardened red districts that hadn’t seen Democrats at their doors before. It’s nice to see that acknowledged.
And it’s good to realize that Democrats can still pound the pavement even in such unusually cold weather. This organizer didn’t credit us with the “sudden appearance” of heated vests — although hunters have known about those for a long time. I was a late adopted in that regard.
Hope Springs starts up our Issues Canvass again in March. Our volunteers knock on doors of Democratic and Independent voters and use a voter-driven approach to guide them through the Issues Survey, the CSR and Incident Reports. 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.
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!
We remain a seat-of-the-pants grassroots-driven operation. But 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!”
No other Democratically-aligned org has been methodically trying to circumvent MAGA efforts to rig the House Midterm elections in 2026. And we need your help to continue. Our printer costs alone are way beyond our budgeting and we are asking for your help (if you are able).
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!
