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"People Are So Nice:" Stranger Things Happened Knocking Doors in Nevada (Senate Swing State Canvass) [1]
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Date: 2022-07-20
167 volunteers came out on Saturday to knock on doors for Hope Springs from Field PAC, knocking on doors in the Reno Suburbs and west of Las Vegas. Like the last few weeks, we had to modify our canvassing routine, which means we started earlier, knocked far fewer doors than we otherwise would have and used drivers to protect our volunteer canvassers. Our Las Vegas canvass actually got interrupted with rain in a few places, so our numbers were affected.
It was the first time our Reno canvass experienced the use of drivers and a cooling vehicle. The use of drivers can take some getting used to, and our Reno volunteers struggled to adjust. One driver called early on to tell organizers he couldn’t find one of his canvassers (they are supposed to lay eyes on them once every 20-30 minutes) after a couple of passes (but he did). Another team didn’t like that we tell them to drop volunteers off furthest away so that they are all walking towards a middle and then discovered that meant the driver took longer to catch up to them at the end of their turf. But feedback is good! Makes cutting turf more informed.
We’ve been canvassing with an Issues Questionnaire that allows voters to tell us what is on their minds. We use it as a conversational check to guide volunteers through their dialog at the door. It makes it easy on our volunteers as provides us with vital data that will be entered in VAN (the Democratic database) after the primary.
Our very first priority in these Senate Swing State canvasses is making sure that everyone in the houses that opened their doors is registered to vote at their current address.
We ask voters whether they have a primary issue concern. What we are looking for is to determine whether they are “single issue” voters. We use open-ended questions because we are really looking for quick, immediate responses. People know what issues they will be voting on, and if they can’t think of any, that doesn’t defeat the purpose. The Economy and especially Jobs returned to the top concern among the voters we talked to on Saturday. Summer Worries, including ‘How Long is this Heatwave going to Last?’, was our second most frequent response. Health Care Costs, and Rising Premiums, have crept back into voters minds and was third place among the Nevada voters we talked to this week. Like other states, we still hear about Reproductive Rights and Gun Violence in the “single issue” or message to Congress query.
Voter views of President Biden have largely stabilized: 56% of the voters we talked to in Nevada last Saturday had a favorable view. 14% expressed disapproval in the job the president was doing and voters have been pretty clear why. I try not to read too much into the statistics we see each week but Nevada is the only state where Biden keeps doing better than the Democratic candidates.
49% of the voters, Democrats and independents, had a favorable impression of Senator Cortez Masto. 10% told us they had an unfavorable of the senator. 48% of the voters who responded gave Governor Sisolak a favorable rating. 8% said they had an unfavorable impression.
Hope Springs from Field PAC has been knocking on doors in a grassroots-led effort to increase awareness of the fact that Democrats care about our voters and are working to protect their rights, and, in March, we will begin an even bigger effort. We are thinking about how to mitigate Voter Suppression efforts, get around them and make sure we have "super compliance," both informing and helping our voters meet the requirements and get out and vote. 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 was started by former Obama Field Organizers because field was the cornerstone of our success. 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 did). 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.
We also ask voters if they have any local infrastructure issues they would tell local elected officials about. We ask those who do if they wanted to fill out Constituent Service Request forms. 14 voters raised some area that they wanted addressed. We pass these along to the relevant local official for the request. We use a generic CSR because cities and towns have vastly different methods and forms for dealing with this.
We re-registered, meaning we updated (or corrected) the addresses, of 9 voters on Saturday. We found no new voters to register.
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.
By starting early, and aiming towards super-compliance with Nevada’s voting laws, Hope Springs from Field PAC seeks to undermine the Republican strategy of shaping the electorate.
If you are able to support our efforts to protect Democratic voters, 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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