Well, this is it. The day we’ve been hoping for, the day that MAGA Trump is unleashed and exposed to all of America. The Trump of P2025. The Trump of mass expulsions, abandonment of our role in the world, the Trump who wants to put his political enemies on trial.
We can’t afford to see the mealy-mouthed, disciplined Trump because no one has a campaign plan for that. If the “kind,” disciplined Trump comes out tonight, well, every campaign plan Democrats have is screwed. We aren’t ready for that. We don’t know what to do with that. Everything depends on Donald Trump returning to form. Everything. The stakes are huge tonight. And it does seem like people are focused on the wrong thing. Because winning is everything, especially this year. We have to have an opponent who screws this thing up.
Off the soapbox.
This is the continuation of a series about the “Biden path” (or Blue Wall) to 270, as outlined in its campaign memo. In it, the campaign asserts the president has “multiple pathways to 270 electoral votes, with a focus on the Blue Wall states.” Hope Springs from Field PAC [website] has been knocking on doors in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin since 2021, and Michigan since last year, in an attempt to create the most favorable electoral space possible for Democrats in the 2024 election. Knocking on doors, talking to voters face to face was deemed critical after the decision in 2020 to spare our voters possible exposure to Covid — although Republicans did not abandon their field operations. We use an Issues Survey to engage voters, collect data, register new voters and as an entry to ask voters about government needs in their neighborhood and concerns about the upcoming election.
We returned to normalcy in our targeting in Wisconsin (and Michigan, Pennsylvania and Nevada) last Saturday. At the request of the campaign, we had narrowed our canvass population the prior weekend to just Democratic households. But Saturday, those four states joined the other 10 states in knocking on the doors of Democrats and unaffiliated voters with our Issues Canvass — our normal targeting.
The Wisconsin Democrats — or WisDems — is one of the best state parties in the country. So if there’s one place where Biden should be leading, it should be Wisconsin. That tells you everything you need to know about the challenges we face right now.
And they have something else that they want to win this year: the state legislative elections with new district lines that gives Democrats a chance at gaining majorities in their state house and senate.
Democrats look likely to pick up seats under the new maps, which will be used during the November election. The maps outline an almost even split between Democratic- and Republican-leaning districts: 45 are Democratic-leaning, 46 are Republican-leaning, and eight are likely to be a tossup, according to an analysis from The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Several incumbents are being drawn into each other’s districts, The Associated Press reported.
Which suggests that the state will be very competitive this November. And, like Arizona, Wisconsin is a state that is a battleground state 3 times over.
481 volunteers came out to canvass in Wisconsin on Saturday. Like last year, we continue to canvass in Milwaukee (where we are canvassing in African-American wards with primarily Black volunteers) and its suburbs (the WOW counties), as well as Racine, Kenosha and Dane counties. The key Democratic and swing areas of this Senate Swing State. And, like 2022, we will ease out of our canvassing efforts as the WisDems pick up their’s in these areas.
Hope Springs volunteers knocked on 35,930 doors and talked to 3,161 voters. 2,023 of those voters answered at least some of our questions on the Issues Survey.
Housing and Insurance Issues (ie, Rent, Single Home Availability and affordability of both Housing and Insurance) was the Top Concern among the Wisconsin voters we talked to on Saturday. The Economy was the second most frequently cited concern. Political Violence, which is an element of the Concern for our Democracy, was third.
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.
Joe Biden’s Approval numbers in Wisconsin fell to 45% last Saturday; his Disapproval number was 16%. Tammy Baldwin’s Job Approval was 60% with 6% of the voters we talked to on Saturday expressing Disapproval. Approval of Governor Evers, meanwhile, was 50%; Disapproval was 11% last Saturday.
Hope Springs from Field volunteers registered 15 new voters and re-registered 52 voters who updated their addresses for the voter file to comply with federal law.
226 voters filled out Constituent Service Request forms. We send completed CSRs to Democratic elected officials responsible for the requested functions, but if there are no Democrats who can further the request, and 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. We increasingly have local Democratic elected officials and prospective candidates join our Saturday canvasses just because they hear about these CSRs.
Wisconsin is a state where we have had a lot of positive comments about the Constituent Service Request forms.
1 voter in Wisconsin completed an Incident Reports, in an African-American neighborhood in Milwaukee. 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 and use a voter-driven approach to guide them through the Issues Survey, the CSR and Incident Report. 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. 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. (We also make Issues Surveys, Incident Reports and Constituent Service Request forms available at the churches we visit, but we don’t include numbers for those, in part because we don’t always get counts back, but also because we like to compare like to like.)
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. 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.
2023 Hope Springs expenses
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.
But here’s the reality: Identifying Single Issue Voters and Constitutional Amendment supporters and doing GOTV (Get-Out-the-Vote) costs us more money than our regular canvassing because this issue drives volunteer turnout higher and higher. Which means we have to buy more lit to distribute and other minor expenses (like water for volunteers). So please:
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!