Two years ago Hope Springs from Field PAC didn’t exist. In November, 2020 former Obama staff who had also staffed the Biden campaign (and were then involved in the transition) were decidedly unhappy about the results in Congress and the lack of coattails. The Georgia Runoffs were in the offing and Democrats in Georgia were discouraging people from outside the state coming to Georgia to help. And, yet, the prospect of gaining a majority in the Senate (how slight the majority would be as well as the prospects) was just too tantalizing. Not just for them, but for the grassroots as well.
What can we do to help?
This was the theme of the conversation I had with several former Obama alums, including those going into the Administration. In that first meeting, a spreadsheet of field staff from Florida, North Carolina, Alabama and Texas Biden and senate campaigns was laid out — and Hope Springs from Field PAC was born. I moved to Georgia, had intensive conversations with the coordinated campaign across the street from Rev. Warnock’s church and identified some holes where people could step in. Once i was in Georgia, i never got the kind of push back that people said they had received from outside the state. If i could get them there, they’d be scarfed up. So, from day one, our job was to get people here and then get them placed where the campaigns most needed help. Our biggest expenses, then, ended up being housing, travel and health insurance.
I took on this role assuming it would end on January 5th. The technical term is a “pop-up” PAC, a one-off entity for a specific purpose. For 3 calendar months, it was a role i was willing to assume. But then we won. Both seats. And our terrific volunteers in Georgia, our donors and the Obama Alum network all wondered: What can we do to help?
All of this has been documented on DailyKos.
We went into 2022 (as we had left 2021) with the mission of 1.) field organizing for Special Elections; 2.) Early/Deep Organizing in Senate Swing States, and 3.) GOTV for the same. This diary documents the results of our second item, Deep Organizing canvasses in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin during the Spring and Summer.
We completed 41,538 volunteer shifts from March 5th through September 3rd in what grew to be 8 Senate Swing States in June. August was definitely our best month, especially after we surpassed our organizer goal of 2 million doors knocked. But these were our stars. Some of our more eager (the Obama campaign called them “Super”) volunteers made it a mission to surpass the 3 Million Doors knocked goal.
Here’s the bad news. From March 5th to Septembers 3rd, our volunteers knocked on 2,984,214 doors. It was an ambitious goal, and, yes, we were only 16,000 doors short. But that’s basically another 228 volunteers we’d have needed on Sept. 3rd (1,392 volunteers showed up for the Holiday Weekend canvass). That would have been a 20% boost. But it was a nice even, seemingly possible goal that inspired volunteers, many of whom came out every weekend (or so it seemed). Our turnout was sufficiently consistent that volunteers contacted organizers to say they wouldn’t make it. And the most important point to remember here is that the 3 million doors goal was entirely volunteer (canvassers) driven. They set it for themselves, they set it for Hope.
”Our Democracy is at stake.” What do you say when a volunteer contacts you to apologize for not being able to show up in mostly not so beautiful weather with that as a coda?
Hope Springs from Field volunteers had conversations with 230,305 voters this Spring and Summer. This was an open rate of 7.7% (8% is a rule of thumb). That’s pretty damn close (especially in a pretty hot summer). But we felt every where we were, that voters wanted to talk to us, were eager to talk to us. And this made our volunteers happy.
There were several states, but Arizona and North Carolina, specifically, where volunteers thought they might run into Trump supporters at the door. We explained that we weren’t knocking on GOP doors and while it was always possible (we know that we knocked on doors where, for example, the wife was a Democrat and the husband was Republican), it didn’t happen (that organizers know about).
But it makes us feel good about the training we offered to door knockers. We definitely know of people who want to knock in groups (especially younger women). We do discourage that. You don’t knock on (almost) 3 million doors by sending out volunteers in groups. And there are definitely 3 things we advocate in training that makes this possible. First of all (i repeat myself), my number one piece of advise (something all our organizers are supposed to start with) when training people how to canvass is, Smile! When i lead trainings, I tell them to “Smile, because no one you talk to today will remember a single thing you say. But they will always remember the impression you left.” Secondly, we ask volunteers to predict, before they have even knocked, whether there is someone how to answer (iow, as they approach the door). This makes our volunteers hyperaware of their surroundings. Hyperaware. Third, we tell people to take 3 steps back after they have knocked (if they aren’t already walking away if they don’t think there is anyone home). We want everyone to be comfortable, the senior who might open the door as well as the volunteer who knocked. And we use this NEST analogy: we want anyone viewing who is at their door to be able to see the entire body of the volunteer. But no one will be able to reach out their door and grab you, either. Works both ways.
We walked with an Issues Survey, where we ask voters what they think and whether they had a message for their elected officials. This Spring and Summer, 144,029 voters answered questions from the survey, in whole or in part. Because we make showing the survey to the voter as we are saying hello, we get a pretty good response and using the questions as jumping off points, voters really self-direct through the process.
We did not correlate responses to the “what single issue will you vote on” responses, but they were entered into VAN (the Democratic database — which happens to be our biggest expense every month). And it is (probably) the most valuable piece of information for Democratic candidates who access VAN in the Fall from all the work we have done. In more than one Senate Swing State, though, the top response to the single issue driving voting decisions question have been Reproductive Freedom. They ran between 21% of the “single issue” responses all the way up to 28% in Pennsylvania.
Every week we asked voters what they thought the most urgent Issue facing us was. For the first 3 weeks, we were only canvassing in Florida (again) and Arizona (new for 2022). But our responses started to show diversity as we added more states, all the way to adding Ohio in June.
Despite Ukraine being a contender at the beginning, Inflation was the biggest concern from the Democrats and Unaffiliated voters we talked to in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin during this first period (graphic).
During the next period, Gas Prices was the most frequently expressed concern. Obviously that’s a reflection of Inflation but this was what was being expressed by voters in these 8 states. Reproductive Freedom has started to creep into the voter imagination — which exploded as the Dobbs decision was officially released right before our last canvass during this second period (graphic — see below).
Hope Springs from Field PAC has been knocking on doors in a grassroots-led effort to prepare the Electoral Battleground in what has been called the First Round of a traditional Five Round Canvass. We are taking those efforts to the doors of the communities most effected (the intended targets or victims) of these new voter suppression laws.
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/2022senateswing
Hope Springs from Field PAC understands that repeated face to face interactions are critical. And we are among those who believe that Democrats didn’t do as well in the 2020 Congressional races as expected because we didn’t knock on doors — and we didn’t register new voters (while Republicans dud). We are returning to the old school basics: repeated contacts, repeated efforts to remind them of protocols, meeting them were they are. Mentoring those who need it (like first time and newly registered voters). Reminding, reminding, reminding, and then chasing down those voters whose ballots need to be cured.
But you can really see that voter attention wasn’t nearly as uniform as Republicans projected (or would have liked). Even before the Dobbs ruling overturning Roe v Wade, voter concerns were prolific and divergent.
You can see from the graphic to the right that we got rained out in Florida at the start of June. There were other weeks where Heat Warnings kept us from canvassing in Phoenix and/ or Las Vegas. Only in our final weekend did Heat Warnings prevent us from knocking on doors in both Phoenix and Tucson (which still confounds me).
But, remember, we used cooling vehicles as a safety precaution during normal (not excessive) periods of heat. And these worked well for us. But there were definitely times this Summer when Heat Advisories or Excessive Heat Warnings kept us from going out. As a rule, we didn’t schedule canvassing when we believed that the temperature would reach 100 before noon.
During this third period (to the left) Gun Violence started to be a major concern (which happens every time there is a mass shooting. But this is also when what we have labelled as Summer Worries, which combined concerns about climate change with things like “We need more AC specialists” or “I hope the grid is secure” and other indicators that people were thinking about how to survive the summer.
But at some point, and i’m not altogether clear why, people started to think about next year’s Health Insurance Costs. Then as August began, a mere 4 weeks after the July 4th shooting, voters started to express concerns about School Safety and whether students would be free of shooting violence this school year. And isn’t that just sad.
So the fourth and final period, we could characterize as worries about the possibility of a recession, new school year fears, Social Security and especially Medicare (but also regular Insurance Premiums) and Reproductive Rights. The one thing we know is that voters liked having the outlet of expressing their frustrations and while only 62% of the voters we talked to took part in this Issues Survey, it was something that volunteers enjoyed doing because we could tell how much voters wanted to get these things off their chests.
We also asked voters how they felt about the president, their governors and their senate candidates. The one thing that was obvious, though, as we got into Summer was that voter opinions about the president and the other politicians were not closely connected. Last year, when we canvasses in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin (as well as Texas), we found a very popular president whose popularity crashed when the Afghanistan pull out left 13 Americans dead. Support for Biden just flipped.
This year, we started with some minor indicators that Biden’s approval ratings had recovered but we now thing this was primarily due to the fact that we had smaller samples and we were largely targeting Democratic households. But the trend lines are clearly starting to converge again for President Biden’s approval ratings in the 8 different states. In the end, 8 percentage points now separated Biden’s approval ratings in Georgia, 66% (final high), and several states at 58% (final low). Remember that we don’t knock on doors of Republican households even though there are definitely doors of mixed party households we canvass. But we are getting interesting feedback from voters who seem inclined to support the president. “He’s got to deliver,” said one voter in Wisconsin recently — a sentiment shared by others in not so different language.
If you can support this kind of work, mobilizing grassroots field efforts in special elections (and runoff elections!) and swing states, we would definitely appreciate your contribution. This has been a totally grassroots-driven effort, designed to produce actionable results that lead to victory for Democrats. Our primary expenses, to this point, has been access to VAN (the Democratic database) and printing. So, if you can:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/2022senateswing
We can also compare the Senate Job Approval ratings from Democratic and Independent or Unaffiliated Voters over time. There is less data here since we only added non-incumbent Senate candidates after their primary victories. Here again we will note that Nevada is particularly disconcerting, primarily because Senator Cortez Masto seems to have lower name recognition than the other senate incumbents. But among the Democratic incumbents, it seems that Nevada will be the closest race. Georgia, because we are talking about more Republicans (who are not part of this data), is notable because Rev. Warnock has very strong support among the voters we have talked to this year in southern and Southeast Georgia.
We found 2,771 people at the door who wanted to complete new voter registration forms in our Spring and Summer canvassing. Another 11,945 voters updated their address, as required by HAVA. 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. Voters registered at the door at only a part of our effort. We have also been involved in helping partnering (Black) churches in registering their members. Those are not included here.
We collected 12,521 Constituent Service Request forms in these 8 states this year. Last year (although in fewer states), we barely had over 5000. In general, we send these 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 CSR and let them know they are working on the issue. This credit-taking is enormously valuable to the Democratic office-holder.
We walked with Incident Reports, and we ask people who say they are concerned about the upcoming general election if they want to fill one out. 869 voters filled them out. These reports are the basis for Phase 2 of our GOTV efforts that began after Labor Day.
We pass along Incident Reports to the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights and NALEO (those that correspond to Hispanic precincts), and send copies to state Democratic Party committees. But our purpose is to combine this information with the two independent databases of voting incidents to look for patterns before the election and use that information for warning district, state and U.S. attorneys’ offices that we could see those patterns resurface on election day. We will also use it to target Election Day Protection activity.
By starting early, and aiming towards super-compliance with these really, really onerous provisions in some states, Hope Springs from Field PAC seeks to undermine that strategy, while informing voters about the new laws and regulations aimed at them. There’s a lot of work to be done, but fortunately, the three states that are making it most difficult are also states in which you can knock on doors at least 10 months out of the year. And, with your help, we will be there, getting our people to super-comply with these restrictive provisions.
I am aware of the volume of data presented in this post. But it is the result of the data we collect at the door, to be entered in VAN and accessible by all Democratic candidates who utilize VAN this Fall. The focus on the “horse-race” aspect of this data is unintentional, because the data is what the it is. It is useful for Democratic candidates and provides paths to victory for data-driven candidates (which most campaigns are these days).
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/2022senateswing
Thank you for your support. This work depends on you!