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Canvassing in the Most Competitive State this Cycle: Senate Swing State Georgia [1]
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Date: 2022-07-15
Nowhere are the midterm elections anticipated and taken as seriously as Georgia. I’m sure this is true on both sides of the partisan spectrum, but there’s a real determination to prove that the election of Rev. Warnock to the Senate was not an aberration. Voters even say his presence in the Senate makes them feel heard. This determination is not just on the part of voters in southern Georgia that we talk to, but also the volunteers who talk to them.
327 volunteers knocked on doors on Saturday for Hope Springs from Field PAC on the Holiday weekend in 16 counties in southern Georgia. Almost all our organizers, the volunteers who lead the canvasses in those counties are products of HBCUs, primarily Albany State and Fort Valley State University, or the Divine Nines. Although I don’t have any numbers on this, I know that a large portion of our volunteer canvassers are, as well.
We had been focusing our canvassing efforts in Georgia on the silver “Toss Up” Congressional District (2nd) that corresponds to the Albany-Columbus-Macon area where we have been active since November 2020. This is a largely rural area with the two HBCUs and a significant number of Black farmers. But we have now expanded our efforts into other counties in southern Georgia that have historically suppressed African-Americans and their right to vote, even to register to vote, primarily driven by the fact that there are organizers in the area willing to train and send out volunteers. One (original) organizer calls it the Columbus/Northern-(most-point-of)-Florida line. With the Macon area added in (it’s not exactly a straight line). Things people say. But you can see where we are that way.
We ask voters who opened their doors if they were registered to vote at their current address and if they have the required photo ID they need to cast their ballot. Some of our volunteers (apparently from partner churches) will ask to “see them.” Even after the primary, we are still finding people who need a photo ID. And we are still organizing (free) Voter Card days for those who do.
Our major focus has been the Issues Survey. Normally, about 60-65% of the voters we talk to answer some or all of these questions. Each week, we ask voters about what issue they think is the most urgent facing America right now. This week, voters said Gun Violence was their most pressing concern. And they pointed out that mass shootings occur in rural America, too. Second were people who complained about the Economy and the prospect of a Recession. We have now heard fears of a recession mentioned by voters in every state we canvass. The third most frequent response this week was (again) the Detention of Brittney Griner in Russia.
Voter views of President Biden have started to improve but they are nowhere near that of Rev. Warnock. 57% of the voters we talked to expressed approval of President Biden in Florida on Saturday. 10% expressed disapproval in the job the president was doing. We continue to get feedback from voters that they wished Biden could do more about the price of gas, inflation and help with farm loans.
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.
77% of the voters we talked to approved of the job Rev Warnock was doing in the Senate. Only 3% expressed disapproval this week. We knock on doors of Democrats and Independents, and not all nine counties we canvassed on Saturday were predominantly Democratic. We don’t knock on doors of Republican households (although we do knock on the doors of mixed households).
Governor Kemp did not fare so well. 16% of the voters we talked to approved of the governor’s work, while 45% disapproved. In Georgia, we are also asking voters what they think of Stacey Abrams and 63% expressed approval; 6% said they disapproved. We enter all this data we collect into VAN, the shared Democratic database, which is made available to all Democratic candidates who use it after the primaries.
We registered 28 new voters and re-registered or corrected Voter Addresses for 101 voters last Saturday. But our organizers want to try to replicate what we are doing in North Carolina, hoping that matching lists of unregistered voters from our partnership with Black Churches with canvass turf will produce the same kind of results we are finding in North Carolina.
We also ask voters if they have any concerns about the upcoming elections. Last year, we walked with lit about the changes in voting laws in Georgia, but we also asked voters about their fears and experience in prior elections. Voters who say they have experience voter intimidation or other problems with voting are asked to fill out Incident Reports. We found 11 voters who wanted to fill out Incident Reports in Georgia on Saturday — all in counties we had not started canvassing in until right before the primary. We collate these Incident Reports, to be shared with local, state and federal officials in charge of voting, as well as use them to plan out our Election Protection strategy in the fall. They could also be used in court cases.
Like last summer and fall, we have been asking voters if they have any local infrastructure issues they would tell elected officials about. In Georgia, we have consistently found people who wanted to fill out Constituent Service Request forms. 157 voters raised some area that they wanted addressed, more than 110 of these are in counties that we only started canvassing recently.
Constituent Service Requests are handed over to (hopefully Democratic) office holders with responsibilities for the area of the request. Q-slips will be sent directly to the campaigns of Democratic candidates. Comments from Observation Forms are entered into VAN, as well, and any questions we collect are forwarded to the appropriate campaigns (or elected officials).
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. Far and away the number one issue that the voters we talked to in the Senate Swing States last year was inflation or price increases, and I imagine that concern has only increased.
But we are also cognizant that Democratic turnout has traditionally dropped off more than Republicans in non-presidential years. So early, frequent voter contact is more important to our side. Equally important, though, is that starting early means that we can make up for our inability to register new voters in the presidential election because we took Covid and the health of our base seriously. Registering new voters (and re-registering existing voters at their current address, in compliance with HAVA) at their door 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.
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!
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