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Why Include North Carolina & Florida in Hope Springs' Swing State Voter Contact Efforts? [1]
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Date: 2023-05-23
Iowa? Minnesota? TEXAS??? North Carolina? Florida? All Swing States? How can this Be?
The standard definition of a competitive or swing district is +/- 5% in the last comparable election. The graphic above is a consensus map that is illustrative. For the purposes of Hope Springs from Field PAC’s early canvassing efforts, in terms of the Electoral College, we are relying upon that standard definition. So, from the table to the right, you can see why we are knocking on doors in Arizona*, Florida*, Georgia, Nevada*, North Carolina and Pennsylvania* (asterisk denotes Senate election, as well). We just started canvassing in Wisconsin* (again) last Saturday and expect to start in Michigan* this Saturday (Hope Springs volunteers are also canvassing in Ohio* (expected competitive Senate race) and Virginia as well).
But it is the questions about our continued efforts in Florida and North Carolina (to a lesser extent) that have raised the most questions. After Ron DeSantis’ 19-point victory in 2022, many commenters have asked about the efficacy of knocking on doors in (my home state) of Florida and North Carolina. Others have asked about Texas, where we canvassed in 2021 but met with local resistance about continuing to do so. After all, we faced even greater resistance in Nevada (from the state party) than we did in Texas. And Texas may be a state we will re-visit, but that isn’t the point of this diary.
More to the point, one person asked about the connection to the Biden’s campaign decision:
Top advisers to President Biden are planning a 2024 battleground strategy that fully invests in North Carolina, while mounting an early challenge in the increasingly Republican domain of Florida, home to two of his top potential rivals. The strategy — which has been briefed to donors in recent weeks and has been signaled in early television advertising buys by the Democratic National Committee — comes as the party and Biden’s team make plans to focus most of their organizing and spending energy on the states that Biden won in 2020.
“President Biden‘s re-election campaign is vowing to hold the states that won him the White House in 2020 but also compete in places it lost like North Carolina and increasingly Republican-dominated Florida” because “the 2024 race presents ‘significant opportunities to grow Democratic support.’”
Everyone is looking at the same numbers. It’s not really a surprise that a presidential campaign, which will raise and spend hundreds of millions of dollars, can afford to take a strategic stand with the hopes of forcing Republicans to spend money there. And the Biden campaign is weighing the risks in Florida:
it offers a different opportunity for Democrats, according to Democrats briefed on the plans. The party is willing to spend early on the state this year in the hopes of making it more competitive next year, while withholding judgment on whether it will be worth the same sort of investment in the fall of 2024 as it was in 2020.
North Carolina is in a similar situation. Popular Democratic Roy Cooper said about his state:
“Republicans have to win it to be president. Democrats don’t. But it’s critical for Democrats to keep it close because Republicans have to expend extraordinary resources and time making sure they win North Carolina.”
There are a couple of independent reasons that Hope Springs from Field continues to knock on doors in Florida and North Carolina. First of all, we did so last cycle and have organizers there willing to continue to volunteer their time in leading grassroots volunteers there. This is nothing to laugh at. Capable leaders in field work are valuable, and we saw more than a few of our organizers go into paid campaign staff in Arizona, Georgia, Ohio and Pennsylvania last cycle. We fully expect to see that same thing happen in 2024.
Secondly, both Florida and North Carolina could see redistricting as a result of court challenges to their 2022 maps. A September 25th trial has been scheduled in a federal-court challenge to the congressional redistricting plan that Gov. Ron DeSantis pushed through the Legislature this spring.
A three-judge panel in the Northern District of Florida on Nov. 8 declined to dismiss the complaint filed by Common Cause Florida and several other groups and individuals. The voting-rights lawsuit argues that the new map, which reduced the number of Black-led districts from four to two, dilutes the voting power of minorities in violation of the 14th and 15 Amendments.
No Florida governor had ever interfered in Florida’s redistricting process before. The governor’s antipathy towards African-Americans is now well-established. DeSantis’ plan (which the state legislature went along with) cut the number of the Florida’s Black-dominated congressional districts in half.
The opponents filed the lawsuit in April, alleging that the plan violates a 2010 “Fair Districts” constitutional amendment, which set standards for the once-a-decade reapportionment process. The lawsuit names as defendants Secretary of State Cord Byrd, the Senate and the House, though individual legislators have been dismissed as defendants. Florida’s constitution was amended in 2010 to prohibit partisan-driven redistricting, a landmark effort in the growing movement to end gerrymandering as an inescapable feature of American politics.
Hope Springs from Field PAC has been knocking on doors since March in a grassroots-led effort to prepare the 2024 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.
VAN, the Democratic database, and walk literature comprise the overwhelming share of our expenses. 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/2024electionprotection
Hope Springs from Field PAC understands that personal 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).
A Congressional remap in North Carolina is the result of November’s election of state Supreme Court Justices, switching a 4-3 Democratic court to a 5-2 Republican one.
In December, the previous court had rejected the redistricting maps for “excessive partisanship” and said the photo voter ID law was illegal for “being infected with racial bias.” On Friday, the new majority said North Carolina courts don’t have a reliable way to determine when maps are overly partisan and so cannot throw out maps for giving one political party an advantage over the other. The reasoning is in line with a 2019 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that concluded that federal courts can’t consider partisan gerrymandering cases. In November, the state used congressional maps drawn by a panel of three judges that resulted in the election of seven Republicans and seven Democrats. The maps that Republican state lawmakers wanted to use would have given Republicans an advantage in 10 of 14 districts.
The AP writes, “The partisan gerrymandering ruling should make it significantly easier for the Republican-dominated legislature to help the GOP gain seats in the narrowly divided U.S. House when state lawmakers redraw congressional boundaries for the 2024 elections.” It seems a remap of North Carolina’s Congressional Districts is inevitable, but it is the other aspect of the court rulings that forces us to continue our organizing efforts in the state.
The Holmes v. Moore ruling means that North Carolina county boards of elections will now be issuing voter photo id’s (just like in Georgia): “The county board of elections shall, in accordance with this section, issue without charge voter photo identification cards upon request to registered voters.” In Georgia, Hope Springs from Field conducted 56 Voter ID days from June 12th, 2021 to October 2022 and helped 18,478 voters get the photo ID cards they needed to vote. For the most part, we knew who these voters were, especially those who were mobilized through the Black Churches. While 18,478 voters got their photo IDs according to the Registrar’s offices in 21 counties, we came away with a list of 13,168 names that we could match to voter history after the November 2022 election. Just to be clear, our efforts amounted to 13,168 voters who turned out to vote in November, voters who would otherwise have been turned away.
We endeavor to do the same in North Carolina.
If you support grassroots organizing to increase voter participation and election protection, expand the electorate and prepare the electoral battlefield for Democrats, please help:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/2024electionprotection
Back to Florida. DeSantis’ 2022 victory seems impressive, but was fueled by typical organizing techniques that Democrats in the state have not matched:
Republican committees in every Florida county organized registration drives, adding over 553,000 voters to statewide GOP rolls since 2018, after adjusting for people who died, moved, switched parties or stopped voting, party officials say. By Election Day, the GOP had 292,000 more registered voters than Democrats, state data show, flipping a 257,000-vote Democratic advantage in 2018. Party officials say they got there by knocking on 2 million doors to try to register people to vote Republican.
We have noted this contrast before, as Democrats Debbie Mucarsel-Powell and Donna Shalala both lost their bids for re-election to Congress in 2020. They blamed the dearth of direct voter contact by Democrats in South Florida as the reasons why they lost. You could say that we have been out-organized in Florida — everywhere in Florida — and that simply can’t continue. Expanding the electorate, and making sure that every voter *can* vote, is a core mission at Hope Springs.
But we have two more reasons why Florida remains in our sights. DeSantis’ war with Florida’s biggest employer has already seen real economic impact, with jobs being moved back to California. When we canvass in Florida, we periodically see the Disney issue raised in our Issues Survey where we ask people what their Top Issue or Concern is. We see responses both in the question about the Top Issue in the country as well as the Top Issue in the state. Surprisingly, the Democratic and independent voters we talk to are more likely to raise it as their top national concern that top state concern.
But even as Disney as crept into voter responses, Reproductive Rights continues to be more prominent. The governor recently signed a six-week abortion ban that is deeply unpopular among the voters we talk to.
Here’s the thing: we aren’t knocking on doors in Florida and North Carolina alone. The Biden campaign has started advertising in these states, and we have found voters — in both states — that have seen them. We know that it is easier to talk to voters when they are seeing good things on their televisions, computers and phones. It makes it easier for volunteers as well.
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/2024electionprotection
Thank you for your support. This work depends on you!
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