Two years ago, Hope Springs from Field PAC didn’t even exist. In November 2020, Obama alums then with the Transition approached Obama alum field staffers with a challenge. ‘How can we get field staff into Georgia.’ Covid-19 was still raging, and key figures in the Georgia Democratic Party didn’t want outsiders coming in (figuring Republicans would use it against us, calling out a hypocrisy). Especially those who didn’t sound like Georgians.
So we began a pop-up political action committee. A one-off, with the express purpose of winning Georgia. I flew into Georgia, and talked with the folks at the coordinated committee. Where do they need help? We decided southern Georgia could use help increasing turnout on January 6th, and thus Team Hope Springs was born. “If you could just increase expected turnout by 5%, that would be a big help!” We focused our initial efforts on two tasks: bringing in field organizers and directors from Senate and Congressional campaigns in surrounding states to Georgia and canvassing in the Albany-Columbia-Macon triangle with the two In-School HBCUs as our foundation.
We won the Georgia Senate Runoffs, a feat Democrats fully intend to repeat next month. But, in the process, our “Super Volunteers” became organizers, taking the ground game beyond their campuses and leading canvasses in their home counties when Albany State University and Fort Valley State University took their winter break. And when a core group of these Super Volunteers found out that Rev. Warnock was going to do this all again in two years, they were exasperated. “Wait, what???” the text message read with emoticons i didn’t understand. And a new mission was born. Retain the Senate in 2022 and, especially, Retain the Reverend.
Hope Springs from Field had evolved from an Obama alum project to a grassroots Democrats project with the support of Obama alums. These grassroots Super Volunteers were driving the mission, setting Grand Strategy and refining our goals. Obama alums brought the “Yes, We Can.”
Yes, We Did!
In the past year, volunteers from Hope Springs from Field have knocked on 2,984,214 doors of Democrats, Independents and Unaffiliated Voters in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. This followed our 2021 canvasses in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin where volunteers knocked on 371,020 doors (not including the Georgia Runoffs or special elections). In addition to our Special Elections Mobilization "Strike Force," we are also engaged in Field Staff/Voter Protection Training and targeted canvassing for Voter Suppression Mitigation and "super-compliance" Voter Registration purposes.
Hope Springs from Field PAC was involved in the registration of 117,671 voters, and, with our ongoing efforts to ensure voters have the necessary photo identification, we helped 14,142 Georgians get their free Georgia Voter ID cards! We focused especially on turning out the New Voters we registered over the last two months and, in Georgia, those whom we helped get the needed photo IDs in order to vote.
We have talked to 230,305 voters and 144,029 of them answered questions in 2022 (45,317 and 21,765 respectively in 2021) on the Issues Survey with which we walk every weekend. The valuable data we obtain by asking voters what issues are important to them and how they feel about their elected officials all got entered into VAN (the Democratic database/voter file) available to all Democrats who use VAN in those states. We could not do this without your support! Yes, We Did!
When we targeted these 8 states, we did so methodically, not targeting the key urban centers, but the swing Congressional Districts that grew out of re-districting. Arizona-01, Arizona-06. Florida-07 and Florida-09 (the latter because of Election Protection concerns). Georgia-02. Nevada-01, Nevada-02, Nevada-03, Nevada-04. North Carolina-13. Ohio-01, Ohio-09, Ohio-13. Pennsylvania-01, Pennsylvania-07, Pennsylvania-17. Wisconsin-02 and Wisconsin-04 (the second wholly safe Democratic seat). And Democrats won 16 out of 18. In Ohio-01, we beat an incumbent. In North Carolina, we beat the next so-called GOP star and in Ohio-13, the great Latina Hope for Republicans.
Let’s be honest. A small, grassroots political action committee focused exclusively on voter contact effects the margins. In the last Senate Runoff, we exceeded turnout projections (wishes) by around 5 percent, depending on the county. In Dougherty County (home of Albany State), it was 8% above expectations, even though the students were not in school. But that’s exactly where 2022 was decided, at the margins. In Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada and Georgia, those margins mattered. Field matters. Deep (iow, Early) Organizing matters. And, not to put too fine a point on it, Black and Brown voters Matter. Voter contact works.
But there is still work to be done. 2022 is not over, and we are back to Georgia. Where it all began. Okay, we never really left, we even had organizers and volunteers go up to North Carolina when the court had ruled that felons could register (2021) and for their primary.
I have to tell you that i had people text and email me to express their relief when Nevada was called for the Democrats. “I couldn’t take the pressure again,” one volunteer explained. In 2021, winning the Senate was a dream. An ambition. And even though retaining the Senate was the mission, the pressure was real. No one wanted to talk about failure. Especially after Walker was anointed the GOP (Trump?) nominee.
I get that. I also know that we have built a culture for success in Georgia. Last summer, when our Georgian Super Volunteers went up to North Carolina, one of them put together a playlist to listen to on their trip. Get ready for the game. They included a couple of tunes for the old white guy, and while playlists is not my thing, i gave it a listen. I didn’t even know Jackson Brown had released a new album, but one song from it (ostensibly included for the old AF white guy) became a center piece. “Until Justice is Real” started to have real meaning for those Georgians. In one of my visits to southern Georgia this year, i witnessed how a spark becomes a fire.
At the end of the training, the canvass volunteers would gather in a circle in the parking lot. And, seemingly spontaneously, one volunteer would say, “What is democracy?”
Then a second voice followed, “What is the deal?”
Another one would follow, “What would it look like?”
And another, “How would it feel?” And another voice, “Putting your shoulder to the wheel.”
Then, what seemed like a long pause to me, a sixth voice said, “And staying with it until justice.” And the final voice concluded, “Until justice is real.”
I admit that i found this spoken version more moving than the song, but it said something about why these primarily African-American (overwhelmingly HBCU students) volunteers continue to canvass week end and week out. They aren’t getting paid (no one is, so far), they only want the lit, the tools (like VAN) and the guidance to talk to other Georgians about the task at hand.
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.
What i didn’t know at the time was that this chorus had a specific meaning. The person who started it off had been the volunteer who had the highest number of doors knocked the weekend before. The person who ended it was the volunteer who had talked to the most voters. The top 3 door knockers and top 4 conversants were the 7 voices. This doesn’t happen everywhere, but the “benediction circle” was something some organizers liked to nurture their community of activists.
And that’s what i want people to think about when they think why we’re going to get to 51 Democrats in the Senate. Yes, this is Georgia and Georgia is definitely not a blue state. It is the very definition of a swing state now. But what we are doing in southern Georgia, rural Georgia, is akin to if Republicans start doing well in urban environs.
But this is what grassroots action does. Tilt the playing field. “Until justice is real.”
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!