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Monthly DataDump from 2024 Swing State Canvasses in AZ, FL, GA, NV & NC. Hope Springs from Field [1]
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Date: 2023-05-04
2024 Electoral College Battleground Map
Since March 4, Hope Springs from Field PAC has been knocking on doors (as weather permitted) in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Virginia — all critical states that will determine the Senate majority and who sits in the White House (well, Virginia is for this year (2023) and may lead to work in VA-02 next year). I don’t have to point out that these are the people who will decide who sits on the bench — and who will sit on the Supreme Court here, but this is certainly a driving factor in the creation (and continuation) of Hope Springs.
2024 Senate Battleground Map
But this kind of summary posts provide insight into the growth of this grassroots-driven effort. I know that there is a lot to digest when i start talking data, but some of our volunteers and DKos supporters seem to like it. As a reminder, last year, volunteers from Hope Springs from Field knocked on 2,984,214 doors of Democrats, Independents and Unaffiliated Voters in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. This followed our 2021 canvasses in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin where volunteers knocked on 371,020 doors (not including the Georgia Runoffs or special elections). In addition to our Special Elections Mobilization "Strike Force," we are also engaged in Field Staff/Voter Protection Training and targeted canvassing for Voter Suppression Mitigation and "super-compliance" Voter Registration purposes. You might get the sense that we are pretty ambitious for this cycle. You would be right.
Hope Springs from Field PAC was involved in the registration of 117,671 voters, and, with our ongoing efforts to ensure voters have the necessary photo identification, we helped 14,142 Georgians get their free Georgia Voter ID cards! We focused especially on turning out the New Voters we registered over the last two months and, in Georgia, those whom we helped get the needed photo IDs in order to vote.
We talked to 230,305 voters and 144,029 of them answered questions in 2022 (45,317 and 21,765 respectively in 2021) on the Issues Survey with which we walk every weekend. The valuable data we obtain by asking voters what issues are important to them and how they feel about their elected officials all got entered into VAN (the Democratic database/voter file) available to all Democrats who use VAN in those states. I tell you this because you should know we have something to live up to.
So far, in 2023, 2,876 volunteers have came out to knock on doors in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Tidewater Virginia. We started slow — just Florida and Arizona, where temperatures were reliably above our 65° threshold for the beginning of March. And, actually, we had to cancel our first planned canvass in Arizona for that very reason. The best laid plans.
Regardless, our volunteers knocked on 188,960 doors, and had conversations with 17,189 voters. We did have weather day cancellations in Arizona, Nevada, Florida and postponement of our kickoff in the north Atlanta suburbs, but we persisted.
We walk with an Issues Canvass, where we ask voters what they think and whether they had a message for their elected officials. 10,790 voters answered questions from the survey, in whole or in part. You might notice a gap between our April 1 and April 15 canvass. Our grassroots volunteers decide whether to canvass on holidays like Easter, Memorial Day and Labor Day. Last year, we had people out each of those weekends, but there was a consensus to not knock on doors Easter weekend. Next year, they may decide differently.
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 latter was added when we noticed a bifurcation between the Top Issue response and voter’s commitment to vote on Reproductive Rights no matter what, and it turns out we were right.
What Hope Springs from Field has been doing is replicating the First (and, possibly, the Second) Round of a traditional Five Round canvass. So not only have we been removing bad addresses in VAN (which means saving Democratic candidates who use VAN money, especially in direct mail costs), we have been identifying households among independent or unaffiliated voters where it is risky to send volunteers (as well as Democrats and independent households likely to support them) during persuasion rounds. And for senate races, which have more resources and much more likely to do this, we are leaving real world results, from voters that will allow for more accurate modeling of the electorate. Instead of trying to model from the results of a thousand poll responses, they can model (or test their model) based upon tens of thousands of voter surveys. This is no small thing.
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 next year. And the Issues Survey is not the only way that volunteers collect data at voter’s doors. We use Q(uestion)-Slips and Observation Forms, as well. I mention this because of the things we don’t see voters talking about, things like Hunter Biden’s laptop or legal issues, etc. That is notable, especially since many of these states tend to have a more conservative bent and Fox News is everywhere.
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/fistfulofsteel
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 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 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 is doing. We also ask about the Democratic Senate and nominees (specifically, Rubin Gallego in Arizona).
In Florida, volunteers have talked to 4,668 voters. 57% of the voters we talked to who responded had a favorable impression of President Biden while 6% had a favorable impression of Senator Scott. 6% 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 and Jacksonville; we don’t include households that only have Republicans in them. 38% of Florida voters we talked to disapproved of the job Scott has done in the Senate and 41% disapproved the job by Gov. DeSantis. DeSantis’ efforts to confine Disney has been a major factor in the Central Florida area and his approval numbers dropped markedly after he decided to take on the Magic Kingdom.
In Arizona, 51% of the voters we talked to responded they had a favorable impression of President Biden and 13% had a favorable impression of Senator Sinema. 39% of them had a favorable impression of the likely Democratic nominee, Ruben Gallego and Governor Hobbs had a 41% approval rating.
Just because of the unique circumstances in Arizona, we are tracking how Sinema and Gallego are doing in comparison. This graphic includes Sinema’s Disapproval rating as well. I don’t have to explain why this interests us. These are just raw numbers, you can see from the Sinema numbers that there are people we talk to who don’t have any impression of these candidates, and we don’t push people to decide. One of the contributions we are making to the 2024 campaign is collecting the data so that the various campaigns can model it as they will.
We have not been out there enough in the other states to visually represent the data yet. But you can see what the future will look like as we keep knocking on more doors (and in more states!).
So far, 133 people filled out new voter registration forms for their states during our last two months of canvassing. Another 702 voters have updated their address, as required by HAVA. We differentiate between the two because brand new voters are often ignored by campaigns and we will endeavor to compensate for that somewhat by having volunteers send them post cards before the general election.
We collected 974 Constituent Service Request Forms since we started. 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. 36 voters have filled them out since we start in March.
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.
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/fistfulofsteel
Thank you for your support. This work depends on you!
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