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Weekly Canvassing Report for Georgia, North Carolina and Florida. Because Hope Springs from Field [1]
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Date: 2023-05-03
Weather is always the biggest concerns we have when asking volunteers to knock on doors in Hope Springs from Field’s Early Organizing efforts. Everyone knows that we won’t be knocking on doors when it is 65° the threat of rain is also a concern. It is kinda hard when we see afternoon or evening thunderstorms in the forecast (which a couple of locations had for Saturday), and it is the organizers on the ground who usually make the final call. Plus, volunteers won’t show up if they see a forecast that concerns them.
Fortunately, everyone called it right and none of our locations saw rain while they were canvassing. However, north of North Carolina, we saw unusually colder weather than expected and our scheduled canvasses in Virginia got called off. Such is life! The tornado that came would have been after our canvassing, but the lows 60s meant it had already been canceled.
2024 Senate Map
Last Saturday, Hope Springs from Field PAC volunteers continued canvassing in Florida, Georgia and North Carolina. All three were chosen not because they had competitive Senate races coming up (only Florida has a Senate election this cycle, and there is a general consensus that Rick Scott is not in danger — at this time (although i question that consensus)) — but because they are currently considered Swing States in the Electoral College (+/- 5%). And winning the White House is just as important as the Senate.
We continue to knock on doors in the Black Belt in Georgia where we have organizers because 2024 will be a turnout election. We know from the Senate Runoff last year that there were significant numbers of African-American voters who did not cast ballots in the General Election but turned out in the Runoff because they believed Warnock had it all wrapped up. We met these both in the Black Belt and the Atlanta suburbs.
But my work in the Georgia Runoff was concentrated in the 88 precincts, mostly white in the northern suburbs, that had voted for both Gov. Kemp and Sen. Warnock. Hope Springs is expanding our efforts into these suburban counties this year, and last Saturday was our first canvass in Gwinnett and Cobb counties.
We continue to canvass in the Albany-Columbus-Macon triangle as we did for the last two years. Our home-grown organizers from Albany State have now graduated (or will this year), and several have moved on to Atlanta area. So proud of them.
We had 158 volunteers knocking on doors in Georgia last week. They knocked on 10,821 doors and talked to 946 voters. 594 of those voters answered at least some of our questions on the Issues Survey. The Top 3 Issues canvassers found in these Georgia counties were concern about the Economy. The second most frequent response was Housing Costs and third were Mass shootings. Little more of the third of our responses were from the northern suburbs, but they were more consistent about their Top Issues.
Biden’s Approval numbers among the Georgians we talked to was at 55% last Saturday, with a Disapproval number of 18%. Again, as we have expanded in to more White voters and far fewer voters in Dougherty County (which has always skewed our Biden number higher), we see favorability for Biden. dropping. In comparison, Approval of Governor Kemp was 41% and Disapproval was 39% last Saturday.
Volunteers registered 8 new voters and re-registered 42 voters. 89 voters filled out Constituent Service Request forms and 3 voters completed Incident Reports. Eight other voters expressed concerns about the 2024 elections but did not fill out incident reports because they didn’t admit to witnessing voter suppression or intimidation (they just expressed concerns or worries about them).
We continue to find voters who say they need a photo id (which is surprising since that was required to vote in the 2022 elections), and we make a note in preparation of helping them to obtain one from the Registrar’s office.
In North Carolina, 84 volunteers knocked on doors in Wake and Chatham counties. They knocked on 6,011 doors and talked to 586 voters. 374 of these voters answered at least some of our questions on the Issues Survey.
The Top 3 Issues canvassers found in North Carolina were first, Recession Worries, secondly Crime and third, Gun Violence.
Biden’s Approval number among the Democratic and unaffiliated voters we talked to was 56%; remember, we don’t include Republican households in our walk lists (which our volunteers really, really appreciate). Disapproval was 12%. More than 40% of the voters we talked to on Saturday had no idea who their senators were or had any kind of impression of them (while we are asking about voter approval of senators not on the ballot, we aren’t really tracking these numbers).
Democratic Governor Roy Cooper does better among these voters. 52% of the voters we talked to on Saturday approved of the job Cooper is doing; 5% expressed disapproval. Volunteers registered 5 new voters and re-registered 29 voters. 32 voters filled out Constituent Service Request forms and 1 voter completed an Incident Report. We send completed CSRs 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.
Hope Springs from Field PAC has been knocking on doors since last month in a grassroots-led effort to prepare the Electoral Battleground in what has been called the First and Second Rounds of a traditional Five Round Canvass. We are taking those efforts to the doors of Democrats and unaffiliated voters with a systematic approach that reminds them not only that Democrats care, but Democrats are determined to deliver the best government possible to all Americans.
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/fistfulofsteel
Hope Springs from Field PAC understands that volunteer to voter personal interactions are critical. We are returning to the old school basics: repeated contacts, repeated efforts to remind them of protocols, meeting them were they are, helping voters to understand the importance of super-compliance with these new voting restrictions that Republicans keep enacting. 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 (and can be) cured (in states that allow it).
128 volunteers came out to knock on doors in Seminole, Volusia, Osceola and Duval counties on Saturday. They knocked on 9,290 doors and talked to 798 voters. 510 of those voters filled out at least part of the Issues Survey.
The Top 3 concerns of the voters we talked to in Florida were the (state) Legislative Session, the Economy and, third, Schools.
Biden Approval among the Floridians we talked to was at 57% last Saturday and 10% expressed some measure of Disapproval. 6% of the voters who responded Approved of the job Sen. Rick Scott was doing (he had been the previous governor of the state) while 38% expressed Disapproval. There is good reason to think that Gov. DeSantis is influencing some of that.
6% of the voters we talked to thought Gov. DeSantis was doing a good job, 41% said they disapproved of the job he was doing. In 3 of these counties, we had voters voice concerns about the governor “getting a free pass” because he will be running for president. Florida has a Resign to Run law, and the Florida legislature is rescinding that for DeSantis and thinking about suspending Florida’s FOIA laws for his travel. All to make it easier for his battle against Trump in the GOP primaries. Surprisingly (at least to me), some Florida voters find this a bad precedent.
English side of bilingual Lit
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. We also ask voters if they have an problems that local, state or federal governments need to address in their neighborhoods. In Florida, we had 63 voters fill out Constituent Service Request forms.
But the main focus of our canvassing right now is the Issues Survey, asking voters for their input and concerns. We find that most voters who aren’t in a hurry or in the middle of something are willing to answer at least a couple of these questions, especially their top issue or concern and their views of President Biden. Voter responses to the questionnaire are entered into VAN and made available to all Democratic candidates who use VAN in the state after the primary. Creating this kind of data isn’t done with a specific goal in mind but has the purpose of engaging voters and creating a dataset that any Democratic candidate can use in opposition to a Republican.
Our very first question is whether the person we are talking to is registered to vote at their current home address. Lots of mobility in these Florida communities, but we also ask if there is anyone living there who needs to be registered as well. In Florida, given the current laws, we offer up a tablet with the Secretary of State website up so that voters can register or update their information themselves. Part of this is making sure that voters are registered in compliance to the new, confusing and frustrating Election law that is particularly onerous for people who change residences more frequently than normal. But registering new voters (and re-registering existing voters at their current address, in compliance with HAVA) at their door is also critical to our approach. Arizona has a much more friendly voter registration system, including the ability to opt in to permanent early voting. Of course, canvassing 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.
In Florida, though, the new law requires voters to provide, in addition to their date of birth, the last four digits of their Social Security number OR their driver license OR state ID card number to make an address change. Which is par for the course this year, but here’s the part that is likely to stump people who move around. You have to remember which one you provided, because you have to provide the same one every single time you interact with your local Supervisor of Elections, or your request won’t be granted. Supervisors of Elections won’t have access to other databases, so they can only "verify” a request by the information the voter has provided. But this is something we have learned to track so that if the voter registration was not successful, we can go back.
We registered 3 new voters in Florida on Saturday, 31 voters who updated their addresses.
Hope Springs has targeted states that have competitive Senate races and/or the Electoral College in 2024, as well as Congressional Districts that are remapped in ways that offer opportunities or vulnerabilities for Democrats next year (specifically those where a Republican won a Congressional District that voted for Biden in 2022). There is a lot of work to be done! Especially since we have had to expand the map this year.
By starting early, and aiming towards super-compliance with these really, really onerous provisions, Hope Springs from Field PAC seeks to undermine that strategy, while informing voters about the new laws and regulations aimed at them. That includes making sure that out-of-state workers at Disney know to, and how to, obtain a State ID card if they don’t want to give up their out-of-state DL but still want to vote in Florida. 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/fistfulofsteel
Thank you for your support. This work depends upon you!
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