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Kick Off Canvasses in Wisconsin & Continued Door Knocking in Ohio. We Got This! [1]
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Date: 2023-05-26
2024 Electoral College Battleground Map
Weather remains a guiding factor into when we start knocking on doors in a new or returning state. So, not for the first time (we started off in the first Saturday of March having to postpone our kickoff canvass in Arizona(!)), we had to delay a state kickoff canvass because it didn’t meet the 65° threshold at the start of May. But then Spring arrived in Wisconsin and it was delightful. It’s always fun to get started in a new (and especially in a consequential) state.
2024 Senate Battleground Map
Especially in an off-year, we want volunteers to be comfortable and have a great experience. This matters because you don’t want them scared away before GOTV — when campaigns need us most! — in the Fall of 2024. Now Wisconsin can have some really chilly weather when you canvass before the Wisconsin primaries, but this isn’t 2024. So it was nice to be able to say, HELLO WISCONSIN!
Before we get to that, though, we start with Ohio. Hope Springs from Field PAC organizers had set some small “footprint” goals for the year because we are increasing the number of states we want to operate in this cycle. The first one was 75 different canvass locations from which we send volunteers and this week we reached that. Actually, we exceeded it and Ohio (along with, unsurprisingly, Georgia) had the most locations — 13! We sent volunteers out knocking on doors from Cincinnati, Columbus, south east of Cleveland and the Toledo-based Congressional District of Marcy Kaptur (it covers a lot of counties along Lake Erie), 8 different counties in all. We don’t know what the 2024 Congressional map will look like, and perhaps the threat has passed for this year, but we want to be ready for it if there are changes. Regardless, Ohio is also considered a swing state in both the Electoral College map and the Senate, so we would be here anyway but redistricting is something we still have to watch.
238 volunteers showed up to knock on doors in Ohio on Saturday. Volunteers knocked on 17,231 doors on Saturday and talked to 1,466 voters. 901 of those voters answered at least some of our questions on the Issues Survey.
The Top 3 Issues canvassers found were the 2022 hits: Recession Worries was the Top Concern (which hasn’t been mentioned as much as 2022), Debt Ceiling negotiations or fears was the second most frequently cited concern and Reproductive Rights came in third (again). The most mentioned concern in the state portion of the Issues Survey was about legislative proposals affecting their state Constitution, again!, which could also be labelled as concern about Reproductive Rights. We continue to ask “If there is a single issue that will determine how you vote, what is it?” Abortion popped out as the singular answer this week, which i don’t believe ever happened last Summer in Ohio. Of course, news about court cases, abortion pills and increasing restrictions in Ohio and elsewhere is all over the news, and this continues to be a driving issue for 2024.
Joe Biden’s Approval numbers among the Ohioans we talked to dropped to 49% last Saturday, but his Disapproval number was 12%. Senator Brown’s Approval also dropped to 55% with 12% of the voters we talked to on Saturday expressing Disapproval. Approval of Governor DeWine, meanwhile, dropped slight to 54%; Disapproval was 8% last Saturday.
Hope Springs from Field volunteers registered 7 new voters. 31 more voters updated their voter registration to comply with federal law. We differentiate between new voters registered and existing voters re-registering because we plan to continue our New Voter Postcard effort, and even add Voter Video Chains this cycle.
A whopping 91 voters filled out Constituent Service Request forms. We send completed CSRs to Democratic elected officials responsible for the requested functions, but if there are no Democrats who can further the request, and 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.
No one filled out Incident Report in Ohio this week, but we are still hearing concerns about the 2022 (or 2020) election. 5 voters asked questions that will be forwarded to the candidate’s campaign (we walk with Q(uestion)-slips that are filled out if the voter asked the volunteer a question; these are then forwarded to the appropriate campaign, freeing volunteers to answer questions that they may or may not know the answer to). We also walk with Observation Forms that volunteer canvassers can fill out if they notice something they think will be helpful to other canvassers. We always record these observational notes in VAN, so that the Democratic campaigns that follow have access to volunteer observations.
Hope Springs from Field PAC has been knocking on doors since March 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).
141 volunteers canvassed in Wisconsin on Saturday (which i think is pretty impressive for a state kickoff canvass). Like last year, we continue to canvass in Milwaukee (where we are canvassing in African-American wards), as well as Kenosha, Waukesha and Dane counties. The key Democratic and swing areas of this Senate Swing State. Volunteers knocked on 17,231 doors on Saturday and talked to 1,466 voters. 901 of those voters answered at least some of our questions on the Issues Survey.
We knock on doors with an Issues Questionnaire, which we use as a conversational device to make it easier for both volunteers and voters. But one thing that our Wisconsin volunteers have been more adept at that any other state (according to our organizers) is the demonstration part of voter contact. Not only have they been adept at showing voters the survey right off the bat (doing so allows voters to see that this won’t take long and there are no surprises in participation), but many of these volunteers have jerry-rigged or made modifications to clipboards that allow them to easily go back and forth between the (paper) survey and input into their phones with miniVAN.
But we find that, by sharing or showing the survey with voters, many of them pick out the questions they want to answer — sometimes even moving directly to those questions. And the survey also sparks conversation and because we train our volunteers to absorb information, not challenge voter comments, we can learn an awful lot about individual voters and their views of the political and cultural trends of the area. This tactic means that we tend to get about 65% of those who answer their doors to provide at least 2 answers to the survey, and generally answer at least 6 questions.
This week, per usual, Debt Ceiling negotiations was the most popular response to “What Issue is most Urgent?” Schools & Property Taxes was the second most frequent response; several voters mentioned worrying about property values in connection with those. Crime was third. We do still hear a lot additional comments about Reproductive Rights and Gun Violence in the “Anything to add” or message to Congress query. And even though most volunteers only get to talk to 8-10 voters (maybe double that, if you include other voters in the same household) a weekend, you get the sense that what we learn over time is what voters in those areas are talking about, thinking about, making their voting decisions on.
53% of the voters we talked to expressed approval of President Biden last Saturday. 13% expressed disapproval in the job the president was doing. 62% of the voters we talked to expressed approval with Tammy Baldwin last Saturday. 8% of voters told us they had an unfavorable opinion. 52% of the Democratic and Independent voters we talked to approved of the job Gov. Evers is doing. 13% said they had an unfavorable impression.
As you can see from the very first question in the Issues Questionnaire, making sure that voters are registered from their current address is a major function of early canvassing. But we are also asking people who open their doors about whether they need services delivered to their neighborhood. We registered 3 New Voters last Saturday and updated (or corrected) the addresses of another 25 voters.
63 voters we talked to filled out Constituent Service Request forms last Saturday. 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 specifically 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 5 voters, mostly in Milwaukee, who wanted to fill out an Incident Report in Milwaukee on Saturday. 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.
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.
But the main focus of our canvassing right now is the Issues Survey, asking voters for their input and concerns. 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.
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.
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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