There’s something about being data-driven that makes anomalies or shifts in trends just jump right out at you. You look at the screen (everyday) and you almost anticipate the numbers as they come in. This week, at the request of the campaign, i had company when i got back in town and looked at the numbers. And one thing that jumped out at us was the increase in turnout in Florida and Texas. Before the debate, Florida volunteer turnout represented 8.8 percent of our volunteer turnout and Texas 12.8%. This week, Florida volunteer turnout represented 11.2 percent of our volunteer turnout and Texas 13.3%. Now not really significant, but red states did increase in volunteer turnout while blue states decreased. And that’s weird. To me, at least.
Another way of putting it would be that red states resumed to normal last Saturday and blue states did not. So we’re going to give them their due. Hope Springs from Field PAC [website] volunteers maybe aren’t that predictable, who knows? But the fact that the red states in the 12 states where we’ve been canvassing have snapped back is interesting.
These are also the states that are most unaffected by Biden’s performance in the debate. Doesn’t mean that volunteers in the red states are immune to the discussion, but probably that they are more focused on other things, the things that had been driving turnout before the holiday.
Consensus 2024 Senate Battleground Map
In Florida, we continue to build a database of voters who signed the petitions our volunteers circulated and add them to those who have self-identified as Abortion Single Issue voters. We’ve been verifying that signers supported the amendment and planned to vote for it in the Fall. Everything we do is directed at GOTV (Get-Out-the-Vote). Early Organizing allows us to be that pro-active, to continue to expand our knowledge of the electorate to help elect Democrats and win votes for the things the grassroots supports.
405 volunteers came out to knock on doors in 6 Florida counties last Saturday. The highest temp recorded during the time we were out was 92°. They knocked on 29,036 doors and talked to 2,328 voters. 1,460 of those voters answered questions on at least part of the Issues Survey.
The Top 3 concerns of the voters we talked to last Saturday were, first, Economic Uncertainty. The biggest factor here is the voter expectation that Interest Rates will Fall. Summer Worries (hurricanes, tourists, etc) was the second most frequent Issue. Housing Concerns and Insurance (Price) Increases was the third most cited concern.
Biden Approval among the Floridians we talked to remained 49% last Saturday; 10% expressed some measure of Disapproval. 18% of the voters who responded Approved of the job Sen. Rick Scott was doing while 31% expressed Disapproval. This is relatively unchanged from last year. 24% of the voters we talked to thought Gov. DeSantis was doing a good job, 25% said they disapproved of the job he was doing.
194 Florida voters filled out Constituent Service Request forms. We send 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.
2 voters in Florida completed an Incident Reports. 8 other voter expressed concerns about the 2024 elections but did not fill out incident reports because they didn’t say they witnessed voter suppression or intimidation (they just expressed concerns or worries about them). 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.
The very first question on the Issues Surveys is whether the person we are talking to is registered to vote at their current home address. We also ask if there is anyone living there who needs to be registered as well. In Florida, given the current laws, we offer up a tablet with the Secretary of State website up so that voters can register or update their information themselves. Part of this is making sure that voters are registered in compliance to the new, confusing and frustrating Election law that is particularly onerous for people who change residences more frequently than normal. But registering new voters (and re-registering existing voters at their current address, in compliance with HAVA) at their door is also critical to our approach. Arizona has a much more friendly voter registration system, including the ability to opt in to permanent early voting. Of course, canvassing is the hard way to do voter registration, but we catch people that our voter registration campaigns can miss because of their emphasis on larger-scale or mass voter registration.
In Florida, though, the new law requires voters to provide, in addition to their date of birth, the last four digits of their Social Security number OR their driver license OR state ID card number to make an address change. Which is par for the course this year, but here’s the part that is likely to stump people who move around. You have to remember which one you provided, because you have to provide the same one every single time you interact with your local Supervisor of Elections, or your request won’t be granted. Supervisors of Elections won’t have access to other databases, so they can only "verify” a request by the information the voter has provided. But this is something we have learned to track so that if the voter registration was not successful, we can go back.
We registered 22 new voters and got 18 more voters to update their voter registration addresses in Florida on Saturday. A majority of the 22 new voters were African-American. We use the Secretary of State website to register voters in Florida, in order to meet Florida’s difficult restrictions there.
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.
482 volunteers came out to knock on doors in the Houston area, the Dallas suburbs and parts of TX-15 on Saturday. The highest recorded temp during the time we were out was 93°. We knocked on 32,631 doors and talked to 2,404 voters. 1,392 voters answered questions from at least part of the Issues Survey. You may have noted some drop off in response rates in both states. This happens when there are Heat Risk advisories out. But we were really more worried about ran in Texas than oppressive heat because we canvassed earlier in the day, when it wasn’t expected to be so bad. (We beat out the rain, too.)
The Economy was the Number 1 issue for the Texans we talked to on Saturday. Housing and Insurance Issues (ie, Rent, Single Home Availability and affordability of both Housing and Insurance) were the #2 issue voters raised. Border Security and Immigration was third.
Among the Texans we talked to, Biden’s Job Approval was at 46%; 15% expressed some measure of Disapproval. 15% of the voters who responded Approved of the job Sen. Cruz was doing while 29% expressed Disapproval.
It is important to remember that we are knocking on the doors of Democrats and unaffiliated voters. We also ask about whether voters Approve of the Democratic Senate nominee Colin Allred. This week, 45% of the voters we talked to had a positive impression of the Congressman and Senate candidate. 20% approved of the job Gov. Abbott was doing; 31% disapproved.
We registered 13 new voters and re-registered 20 voters who updated their addresses for the voter file. We differentiate between the new voters and re-registering voters 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 will also receive robocalls thanking them for registering.
211 voters filled out Constituent Service Request forms. We send 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.
2 voters in Texas completed an Incident Reports. 3 other voters expressed concerns about the 2024 elections but did not fill out incident reports because they didn’t say they witnessed voter suppression or intimidation (they just expressed concerns or worries about them). 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 knock on the doors of Democratic and Independent voters. 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 the Electoral College in 2024, as well as Congressional Districts that are remapped in ways that offer opportunities or vulnerabilities for Democrats next year (specifically those where a Republican won a Congressional District that voted for Biden in 2022). 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.
We are also — this being an election year — adding the Post Cards to New Voters component back into our Voter Outreach, both New Voters we find at their doors as well as New Voters we target in the Voter File. Several of our Arizona organizers are also talking to Native American groups about replicating our Voter Matching service that Hope Springs provides for Black Churches. This is really dependent upon the Native American tribes, though. It’s a big year. There’s lots to be done, and, hopefully, we won’t have to suspect in-person voter contact because of a heatwave this year.
2023 Hope Springs expenses
Our biggest expense is the Voter File. But it is also a fixed cost. That won’t change as we raise and spend more money. Printing literature is our second largest cost. 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.
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/hopemobilization2024
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!