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Weekly DataDump from Senate Swing 2022 Canvassing in AZ, FL, GA, NV, NC, OH, PA & WI [1]

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Date: 2022-08-06

Since March 5, Hope Springs from Field PAC has been knocking on doors (as weather and primaries permitted) in Arizona, Nevada, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin — all critical states that will determine the Senate majority for the next two years. And nothing is more important this election than maintaining a Democratic Senate and even expanding upon it.

2,839 volunteers came out to knock on doors last Saturday — our best outing yet. These volunteers knocked on 204,536 doors, and had conversations with 14,777 voters. Weather clearly effects these numbers. States where volunteers are walking in the 90s have much lower response rates; states where weather is cooler obviously have higher response rates. Which is expected in the summer. But there is something else we are detecting. Volunteers who have frequently worked with us through the summer, tend to knock out more doors because they have really acclimated to the “decide before you knock if there is someone home” strategy. So in states like Florida, where we have knocked for two summers, we hit more doors per volunteer even though the voter response rate is lower when it is hotter.

If you are a regular reader of these canvass diaries, you may remember that we started this summer with a goal of knocking on (and leaving lit at) 2 million doors (for this year) before Labor Day. We are likely to pass that goal before the end of the day today (8/6); organizers in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania want to up the goal to 2.5M while our intrepid organizers in Georgia think we could knock out 3 million doors before Labor Day. I like their enthusiasm.

We walk with an Issues Canvass, where we ask voters what they think and whether they had a message for their elected officials. 8,716 voters answered questions from the survey, in whole or in part. By far, the highest response numbers always are in the second question, about what issue voters think “is most urgent” at this time. The “send a message to your Member” is very popular, as well. But we are getting a lot of responses to the “Is there a single issue that will determine how you vote” question, too — far higher than I expected.

The ‘what is their opinion of the job Biden is doing’ question also receives a lot of responses. 4,889 voters (56%) told us that they have a favorable opinion of the job Biden was doing as president. 2,988 voters (34%) didn’t express an opinion of the president at this time. 841 voters (9.6%) said they had a negative impression of the job the president was doing last Saturday. Remember that we are knocking on doors of Democrats and Independent or Non-Affiliated households. While it is not impossible to reach a Republican through our targeting of these households, we exclude GOP households by and large.

While we are not tracking the “what single issue will you vote on” responses, these are entered into VAN (the Democratic database — which happens to be our biggest expense each month), just like all this data. But it is (probably) the most important piece of information for Democratic candidates who access VAN in the Fall.

The Economy was the Top Issue this week, according to the voters we talked to last Saturday. Concerns over Jobs (prospect of Recession) was the top response in Ohio and Wisconsin and Summer Worries (the Heat, Global Warming, Water) was Number 1 in Nevada this week. Health Care Costs (and the prospect of increase in premiums next year) was the Top Issue in North Carolina.

The Economy was the Number 2 Issue in North Carolina, Nevada, Ohio and Wisconsin. Jobs was Second in Florida; Climate Change (Heat) was second in Arizona; Education was second in Georgia and Pennsylvania. The Number Three Issues were Typical, except for questions about Fair Elections in Florida, and Farm Issues, which was third in Georgia.

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.

We ask voters who talk to us whether they approve or disapprove of the job the president, their incumbent Senator (up for election this year), and how their governor (if they are up for election this year) is doing. After the primaries, we ask about the Democratic Senate and Gubernatorial nominees.

Florida (top) & Arizona graphs

In Florida, 54% of the voters we talked to who responded had a favorable impression of President Biden but only 19% had a favorable impression of Senator Rubio. 3% had a favorable impression of Governor DeSantis last week. Remember that we are only knocking on doors of households with Democratic and Independent voters in Central Florida; we don’t include households that only have Republicans in them. 31% of Florida voters we talked to disapproved of the job Rubio has done in the Senate and 45% disapproved the job by DeSantis in Central Florida.

In Arizona, 55% of the voters we talked to responded they had a favorable impression of President Biden and 76% had a favorable impression of Senator Kelly (an uptick for both). 15% of them had a favorable impression of their retiring Governor Doug Ducey while 38% had an unfavorable view.

Georgia (top) and North Carolina graphs

In Georgia, 64% of the voters we talked to approved of the job President Biden was doing. 81% approved of the job Senator Warnock was doing. Only 11% approved of the job Governor Kemp was doing. 64% of the voters we talked to last week had a favorable impression of Stacey Abrams. Again, we are talking to households identified in the VAN model as Democratic and Independent voters (Georgia doesn’t have party registration). We do our best to eliminate Republican households although we do get mixed addresses, where someone is a Democrat (usually a female or younger voter) and someone is a Republican (usually male).

In North Carolina, 54% of the voters we talked to approved of the job President Biden was doing. 58% of the voters we talked to approved of the job Governor Cooper was doing. Since the Democratic nominee for Senate is now official, we also asked about Cheri Beasley, the former Chief Justice of the NC Supreme Court. 75% of the people we talked to had a favorable impression of Justice Beasley.

Nevada (top) & Pennsylvania graphs

In Nevada, 56% of the voters we talked to approved of the job President Biden was doing. 50% had a favorable impression of the job Senator Cortez Masto was doing. 49% of voters approved of the job Governor Sisolak was doing. Both them had higher numbers during the time Nevada had their primary, so we can assume benefited from increased advertising and name recognition. Whereas 12% of the Nevada voters we talked to had a negative impression of President Biden (the week’s high), only 8% had a negative view of the senator and 10% had a negative view of the governor.

In Pennsylvania, 56% of the voters we talked to approved of the job President Biden was doing. 67% had a favorable opinion of John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate. People are eager to see him back on the campaign trail. 74% had a favorable view of Josh Shapiro, the Democratic nominee for Pennsylvania governor.

In Wisconsin, 54% of the voters we talked to approved of the job President Biden was doing, 11% disapproved. 4% approved of the job Senator Johnson was doing while 58% of the voters we talked to disapproved of their senator. As you can see, the approval numbers for Johnson have been remarkably consistent. In fact, his numbers have been the most consistent of any candidate we have asked about. 54% approved of the job that Governor Evers was doing; 9% disapproved.

In Ohio, 52% of the voters we talked to approved of the job President Biden was doing. 12% disapproved. 78% approved of the job Tim Ryan was doing. 28% approved of the job that Governor DeWine was doing. 25% of the Democratic and Independent voters we talked to last Saturday disapproved of the job DeWine was doing. I find it interested that the approval numbers for Ryan and DeWine appear (reversely) synced.

The trend lines are now starting to diverge again for President Biden’s approval ratings in the different states. 12 percentage points now separate Biden’s approval ratings in Ohio (week’s low) and Georgia (week’s high). Remember that we don’t knock on doors of Republican households even though there are definitely doors of mixed party households we canvass. But we are getting interesting feedback from voters who seem inclined to support the president. “He’s got to deliver,” said one voter in Wisconsin recently — a sentiment shared by others in not so different language.

146 people filled out new voter registration forms for their states during last weekend’s canvassing. Another 665 voters updated their address, as required by HAVA. We differentiate between the two 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 are also getting robocalls thanking them for registering. Compare this graphic with the first one (above). You can see that the number of voters registered is not a function of the number of volunteers present or doors knocked. Clearly, they help, but there’s no guarantee that more doors equals more voters registered. Even though registering voters is a primary rationale behind early canvassing, it is not the only one. Just wanted to point that out.

We collected 831 Constituent Service Request Forms last week. In general, we send these 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 CSR and let them know they are working on the issue. This credit-taking is enormously valuable to the Democratic office-holder.

We continue to walk with Incident Reports, and we ask people who say they are concerned about the upcoming general election if they want to fill one out. Last Saturday, 29 voters filled them out.

We pass along Incident Reports to the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights and NALEO (those that correspond to Hispanic precincts), and send copies to state Democratic Party committees. But our purpose is to combine this information with the two independent databases of voting incidents to look for patterns before the election and use that information for warning district, state and U.S. attorneys’ offices that we could see those patterns resurface on election day. We will also use it to target Election Day Protection activity.

By starting early, and aiming towards super-compliance with these really, really onerous provisions in some states, Hope Springs from Field PAC seeks to undermine that strategy, while informing voters about the new laws and regulations aimed at them. There’s a lot of work to be done, but fortunately, the three states that are making it most difficult are also states in which you can knock on doors at least 10 months out of the year. And, with your help, we will be there, getting our people to super-comply with these restrictive provisions.

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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