We had planned a campaign message focused on Trump’s 34 felony convictions. Now, voters don’t even remember that, let alone care. That’s my biggest takeaway from knocking on doors in the Pittsburgh suburbs yesterday. So there’s that.
All the micro-crises that people have been trying to drum up about Project 2025? Yeah, voters aren’t interested in that either. Not even a little bit. (Although i’m sure it will run rampant in the digital world, so at least people there can be angry. It just won’t have an effect on the election.)
There are definitely times when the online world and the real world are really far apart. This year (the last 12 months) has been like that. If you doubt this, i highly suggest you go knock on doors and find out for yourself.
Let’s face it, Democrats are screwed as long as Donald Trump keeps his mouth shut. Totally and completely f*cked. Don’t even try to argue the point. A disciplined Donald Trump wins. Joe Biden went into that debate determined to unleash the real Donald Trump, MAGA Trump. The result was a Trump won by default, not because Trump won the debate but because Biden did so poorly.
Hope Springs from Field PAC [website] volunteers have been listening to voters, knocking on their doors and soliciting their opinions about the upcoming campaign since March 2nd. We’ve been hearing Democratic and unaffiliated voter’s “unsolicited” views on Joe Biden. And what is so interesting is while we don’t have a single report of a voter at their door calling Biden “Genocide Joe,” we had tons and tons of voters who would mention that “Joe Biden is too old” or something along those lines. Feel free to re-read that sentence. It’s really startling how divergent the real world is from the online world. (Remember, we canvass in swing states/swing districts, mostly suburban, not the safe blue districts where, for example, college campuses reside.)
Because it was relatively infrequent, we haven’t been recording that data. But the debate was an extreme shock to the system, we decided to start tracking these comments. The response has definitely been Flashing Red Warning Signs. That’s what we see in the data, and that’s what we heard at the doors.
Hope Springs volunteers started knocking on doors in March in Arizona and Florida, and we’ve added 10 other states as they warmed up. Georgia, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin were added to Arizona and Florida, starting with Georgia, North Carolina and Texas on March 9th. In Arizona, Florida, Montana and Nevada, Hope Springs volunteers circulated petitions to get the Abortion Amendments to their state constitutions on the ballot for this November. And, we did it! Volunteers collected, and Hope Springs organizers verified, 185,718 signatures in those four states.
Last week, the first sign two days after the debate was when volunteers started to back out of knocking on doors for the weekend. But that didn’t happen this week. In fact, we really had very few volunteers sign up for the Saturday canvass. Which was somewhat of a factor in the four states where it was requested that we knock on Democratic doors in Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania (where i canvassed yesterday) and Wisconsin.
But we did have 3,608 volunteers show up yesterday. Looks like a big bounce, right? Well, we had some help. For example, in our Philadelphia area canvasses (not in the city itself), we had 100 “outsiders” join us. We don’t know the exact number here because more than a dozen people took out walk lists, lit and forms, but never reported results. I am told there was evidence that they scrolled through mini-VAN in a manner indicative of actual canvassing, but they didn’t check stuff off.
We didn’t include those “volunteers” (i keep calling them “auditors” in my conversations with other organizers) in our data.
But we knew that we had groups of people joining us, at least in Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. We already have experience with outside groups joining our canvasses in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas — Divine Nine chapters who volunteer together in primarily (predominately) African-American neighborhoods. More data, more better.
But our training period was more somber than before. Training can be a pretty boisterous time, especially as many/most of our volunteers have been through it before. I was trying to remember if this was so last week, and i just didn’t notice. But i noticed yesterday. When we see that there are a number of volunteers who aren’t among our regulars, we try to give the full-blown training. Which we did yesterday. But even in Pennsylvania, we had add-ons, temporary measures related to the weather. In the case of where i was, we were given a cell-number if people needed help. Safety first.
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.
We’ve been attempted to measure the visceral feelings of voters expressing that Biden was “too old” or frail by counting them. Volunteers already walk with Observations Sheets (and Q-Slips) so they are supposed to be recording data that can be helpful in GOTV. “Signs of children present,” that kind of thing. “Front door has a pile of (packages), (mail) or doorhangers,” is another frequent observation. Sometimes (although not often) volunteers even make note of where the door is that residents use daily.
So we already had a system in place for collecting voter data on this kind of thing. We are using our Observation forms to record voters who make unsolicited remarks about the president’s age or health. This is why we had so many “outsiders” (we’re all Democrats, so i mean new to Hope Springs). Again, nothing really new — especially early in the canvassing season, we’ve had many candidates join us to see what we are doing.
But there’s definitely been interest in what we are finding at doors in this regard. We’ve all known for a long time that voters had concerns about Biden’s age. The debate just brought that back to the forefront. And if there are people who want to check our work, like they say, the more the merrier. Someone asked me why i agreed to limit the walk list to Democrats yesterday in Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and i thought it was a legitimate test. Not exactly sure what was expected. But i do know the results.
Last week 728 (or 9%) voters gave us unsolicited feedback that either Joe Biden was Too Old or Frail (or other terms suggesting too old or frail). This week, we sent volunteers in Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin with walk lists comprised of Democratic house-holds. Even though we could determine if the voter who responded was a Democrat or unaffiliated/independent voter from VAN, this was meant to weed out uncertainty. But i’d say the results were mixed here. We had more volunteers, which means more responses, this week. And only in Michigan and Nevada did Saturday’s number fall percentage wise.
I include last week’s chart for those who want to compare them.
It is really important to remember that Hope Springs volunteers don’t knock on the doors of Republican households. For the other states, these are approximately half Democratic houses and half unaffiliated houses (but the ratio is dependent on the state and the targeted area).
Last week, in North Carolina, no voter mentioned Biden’s age or health to me. But i joined 198 people in canvassing that Saturday and you can see 106 voters mentioned it. But this week, i had 3 voters make comments worth noting here.
I joined volunteers in Allegheny County, in the western suburbs of Pittsburgh, where someone always says, “Trump is strong here.” Again, we were knocking on Democratic households, and i took out two pieces of turf — one i had cut and one they organizer cut (at their request).
One (male) voter took the Issues Survey and looked it over and immediately said, “he’s too old” — presumably when he read down to Biden’s name. Which i recorded. But when i asked him whether he had a positive or negative impression of the job Biden was doing, he demurred. “No response,” i asked. “No response.” At the end of the questions (he filed a Constituent Service Request about loose pavement in the sidewalks), he asked me, “Are we going to do the right thing?” Open-ended question, no context (that i understood). Things voters say.
Another (this time female) voter shook her head when i asked about Biden’s job approval. I was like, you have an opinion. She just kept shaking her head. “I weep for our country,” she said. “So what do you think about Biden?” i replied. “He’s too old.”
I walked right into that one. (Is that unsolicited?) But what about his Job Approval?, i pressed. “I guess i have to say i don’t approve. I don’t even know if I can vote,” she said. I looked at my phone and she was definitely registered. Her top issue was climate change (this is fracking country), but she shook her head a while. I could tell i made her think about her choices, perhaps too soon. I would say, count her among the double haters.
Finally, i talked to another man who VAN listed as a Democrat (there are people here who have switched their voter registrations from Democrat to Republican), who asked me right off, why did you knock on my door? And i explained to him what we were doing, but he denied that he was a Democrat. I showed him my phone and he still denied it. I had the right voter, he just didn’t agree. Now you don’t argue with the voter (he can be whatever he wants), but it wasn’t a great start.
Still, he was willing to answer the survey questions. He wasn’t a Trumpie. Pretty standard responses. Wanted his “Congress critter” (hadn’t heard that one in awhile) to know that it’s “still hard out here and you should think more about us.”
When i asked about Biden’s Job Approval, he responded, ”he’s let us down.”
But then i had a voter who told me, We need to cut the crap and let’s get on with it. Elderly lady. I have to say i took it personal. Kinda. Seemed directed at me, lol. But that would be 3 (really, 4) out of the 12 voters i talked to yesterday. But only 2 of the 12 fit the criteria for the tables above.
Here’s the thing: After Trump was convicted, President Biden had the momentum going into the debate. That momentum is gone. A somber training led to somber results at the doors. (Last week, i did talk to a voter who was still rah-rah!) But at least our volunteers came back.
There’s a lot of work ahead in the next 120 days. We have dropped more than 4 million pieces of literature at the doors of Democrats and unaffiliated voters since March. So if you are able to support our efforts to mobilize and protect Democratic voters, especially in minority communities, expand the electorate, and believe in grassroots efforts to increase voter participation and election protection, please help. It’s time:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/hopemobilization2024
You can follow that link for our mailing address, as well (for those who would rather send us a check). Thank you for your support! This work depends on you!