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Pennsylvania Spring/Summer Canvassing Wrap-up: the 2023 Democratic Senate Majority Starts Here [1]
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Date: 2022-09-20
Hope Springs from Field PAC started knocking on doors in Pennsylvania on May 21st. This was a continuation of our canvass in the state from 2021, and we had delayed knocking on doors there because volunteers wanted to be involved in the campaigns during the primary. Last year, we had 1,105 volunteers come out, led by 12 former Obama, Hillary and Dean field organizers.
But Pennsylvania is where we were needed the most. Surprisingly. When Fetterman went down and Unaffiliated voters asked about his health, our Democrats Deliver! strategy picked everyone up. We didn’t collect more Constituent Service Request forms than elsewhere, and voters didn’t seek us out for them (like they did in two other states), but walking with these reminded the voters we talked to this summer that Democrats have a purpose, a rational for governing, a belief that voters matter and their needs should be addressed. By knocking on doors this summer, while the candidate recovered, we were able to redirect voter anxiety over Fetterman’s health towards legitimate constituent concerns.
Not that we were alone. Repeatedly, we heard at the doors how the Fetterman campaign was giving it good to the New Jersey Boy. Our presence in the key metropolitan areas reinforced that and reassured voters that the Fetterman campaign was full steam ahead.
4,091 volunteers showed up for these canvasses, led by 17 volunteer organizers in the western suburbs of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. These were experienced canvassers, volunteers through the Dean, Obama and Hillary campaigns. They knew the training and they knew the tactics, so it was no surprise that we were averaging 72.5 doors knocked (per volunteer) each weekend. We endeavored to cut turf of 85 doors (ideally), always reminding people we wanted them to have more turf rather than less turf (our volunteers have been known to complain about turf cut smaller because it was difficult to find 2 or more pieces of turf close to each other. One of the benefit of organizers and volunteers having worked with each other before.
Over the Summer, they knocked on 296,508 doors in Montgomery, Bucks, Northampton and Allegheny counties. We canvassed in the swingy areas of the toss-up Congressional Districts Pennsylvania, specifically the three “toss-up” Congressional Districts (1st, 7th & 17th CDs).
More than 21,992 voters talked to our volunteers since June 4th. Voters opened their doors at a 7.41% rate. (8% is a rule of thumb.) This was our lowest open rate this Summer.
13,659 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 62.1% 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. Pennsylvania responses differed vastly from those we saw in the 7 other states. One look at them and you can tell why. Remember that we weren’t knocking just in the Philadelphia suburbs but also in western Pennsylvania. And when we saw the results in Kansas our volunteers in western Pennsylvania felt vindicated because their results weren’t vastly different than what we were seeing outside of Philadelphia.
It’s barely worth noting that concern for Reproductive Freedom was what made Pennsylvania stand apart from the other states. It’s just really obvious.
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 Ohio the most frequent response was where candidates stood on Abortion Rights. 28.2% of those who gave a response to this question was on Reproductive Rights. This was the highest rate of support for Reproductive Rights from any state we canvassed.
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. Ryan is unquestionably the dominant Democratic candidate in Ohio right now (and, when he wins, Ohio will have two Democratic senators who strike their own path). President Biden likes to think of himself as the Union president but Tim Ryan will certainly have a claim to being one of the Union senators!
President Biden averaged 57.81% approval over the Summer. He averaged 10.31% Disapproval over this time. John Fetterman averaged 64.37% over this same time; he finished about 10 points higher. You can compare what we found at the door from Democratic and Unaffiliated voters with 538’s polling average of the electorate to the left.
I walked with our Ohio volunteers twice in the Philadelphia suburbs and once in the Pittsburgh suburbs this Summer. Even when we were getting questions about Fetterman’s health, we were still hearing positives about voting Democratic in November. “I don’t want to vote for a 3rd senator from New Jersey.” “We have to fight to protect our rights.” That kind of thing. To paraphrase TFG, we could have nominated Mickey Mouse for senate in Pennsylvania and Democrats would still be ahead. It felt like, from the Democrats and Unaffiliated voters we talked to, the Republicans just really screwed up here. Up and down the ballot.
We registered 226 New Voters at the doors this year. We re-registered (or updated their addresses) 886 voters at their doors.
Over the four months we canvassed in Pennsylvania, we collected 1100 Constituent Service Request forms. These were mostly local problems on primarily public properties that voters believed needed to be addressed. 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 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 also collected Q(uestion)-slips, or questions that voters had for candidates and office-holders. In Pennsylvania, we collected 342 Q-slips, many of which were sent directly to the Fetterman campaign.
Volunteers also filled out Observation Forms when they saw or heard something that could be useful in the upcoming campaign. These are things like presence of children, or military family, etc. These are entered into VAN, as well, available to any Democratic candidate who uses VAN in the area.
We also ask voters in the Issues Survey if they have any concerns about the upcoming elections. Voters who tell us they have experience voter intimidation or other problems with voting are asked to fill out Incident Reports. We found 37 voters who wanted to fill out an Incident Reports since April. 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.
But asking — and collecting — Incident Reports has a second purpose at this time. We are reminding voters that we care about Election Protection, that if they witness something, they can say something and it will matter. It also assures them that we are ready to do something if they see something.
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.
I am aware of the volume of data presented in this post. But it is the result of the data we collect at the door, to be entered in VAN and accessible by all Democratic candidates who utilize VAN this Fall. The focus on the “horse-race” aspect of this data is unintentional, because the data is what the it is. It is useful for Democratic candidates and provides paths to victory for data-driven candidates (which most campaigns are these days).
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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