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Wisconsin Spring/Summer Canvassing Wrap-up: Voters are Getting Tired of the Drama and Mudslinging [1]

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Date: 2022-09-14

Hope Springs from Field PAC started knocking on doors in Wisconsin on May 14th. This continued our canvassing from 2021, where we knocked on doors between June and October of that year. 8 Obama and Dean alums served as our field organizers, and all of them were veterans of the Walker recount effort. Our list of 793 volunteers from 2021 was augmented by 3 email blasts of our global list of volunteers who had previously worked with these organizers.

4,289 volunteers showed up for these canvasses in the two major metropolitan areas of the state. Unlike in Florida or Arizona (or Nevada or Georgia), our concern was never the hot weather but whether it would be above 65! Hello Wisconsin!

But the work centered on four counties (as Kenosha was added in August) focused on Democratic or Unaffiliated voters. Despite all the political shenanigans going on elsewhere, canvassing in these areas was fairly smooth. We did knock in the African-American wards of Milwaukee, but our volunteers there were treated almost like heroes. This was another area where our Constituent Service Request forms were highly anticipated (and volunteers made note that there were people who wanted to talk to them who weren’t specifically on our lists because of this approach.

Over the late Spring and Summer, they knocked on 314,109 doors. Most of these could be considered suburban, although both Milwaukee and Madison have urban elements. But more than 200,000 of these doors were suburban areas.

More than 23,907 voters talked to our volunteers since May 14th. Voters opened their doors at a 7.6% rate. (8% is a rule of thumb.) For our Walker recount veterans, it was notable that our experience was less hostile than ten years ago. Not sure what that gets you, but a large reason for that was that the incumbent senator seems to be universally loathed. So maybe they weren’t less hostile, but hostile in a different direction.

14,846 voters filled out, in whole or in part, our Issues survey. Their data has been entered in VAN, the Democratic database, and is available to Democrats who use VAN in the area. This averaged out to a 62% response rate. I posted the Issues Survey every week, so i’ll forego doing so again. But the four main queries (outside of the Job Approval questions) were these:

Are you a registered voter at this address?

What Issue do you believe is most urgent?

If you could send one message to your Member?

Is there a single issue that will determine how you vote? What is it?

The voter registration question allowed us to register (or re-register) voters, which will be discussed below. The Urgent Issue data can be seen to the left. Some issues were obvious, but others were not. The two cultural issues (Abortion and Guns) were highly sensitive to the news of the day, especially after the July 4th shooting not even a hundred miles away.

The entry of Fair Elections as a top issue is notable given that voters seem to have been reacting negatively to the aforementioned shenanigans.

We heard a lot additional comments when we asked voters if they could send one message to their Member of Congress, what would it be? We got a lot of feedback in this question, but specifically about Reproductive Rights and Gun Violence. Whereas Reproductive Freedom didn’t appear that often among the Urgent Issues unless the issue was favored in the media that week. But these two issues became pretty consistent in the Message to Members query.

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.

The most interesting question on the Issues Questionnaire was, If there a single issue that will determine how you vote, what is it? In Wisconsin the most frequent response was where candidates stood on Abortion Rights. 27% of those who gave a response to this question was on Reproductive Rights. Pennsylvania was higher, but Wisconsin was right there. Very interesting.

Questions about politicians were also popular. Voters seem to love sharing their opinions about whether or not the like or approve of their elected officials and candidates. And boy did voters have opinions! .

Marquette Law School Poll has Johnson ahead by one point, obviously, well within the margin of error.

President Biden averaged 56.82% approval over the Summer and Spring. In the Spring, Biden started higher than his average, and he finished two points above average. Biden averaged 11.41% Disapproval over this time. Sen. Johnson averaged 3.7% over this same time. That number just stands out. Did i mention Johnson was loathed by the voters we talked to? Johnson averaged 56.58% disapproval over this time period. Mandela Barnes averaged 68.5% approval from the Democratic and independent voters we talked to. Today’s

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