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Abortion Rights are on the 2023 Ballot in Virginia; Weekly Canvass Report 4 VA & North Carolina [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-07-19
“Canvass like it’s 2023!” In Virginia, that means state legislature elections, and — after Roe (and the quirky election of Glenn Youngkin) — they are critically important. Democrats controlled the state legislature, but lost control in the General Assembly in 2021. Youngkin appears to want to use this year’s election as a springboard into the presidential race, but it is really his determination to gain a Republican monopoly of state control (commonly called a state trifecta) that has energized Hope Springs from Field PAC volunteers. Virginians, or at least Virginia Democrats, see the governor as a trojan horse. He pretends to be a moderate, but he sure governs like a Trumpist. And Virginia isn’t a Trumpie state.
Consensus 2024 Senate Battleground Map
But Youngkin is a mushy candidate. The voters we talk to (Democrats and Independents) don’t have a strong impression of him, even as he has controlled the agenda and the media’s attention over the last two years. He doesn’t even register above 50% in combined favorable/unfavorables. Just really mushy (these are the kinds of candidates you want to ask if people even recognize the name, but this isn’t a poll and we keep the Issues Survey under one page so that we can show it to voters as we ask the questions. Our trainings teach volunteers to leave strong, positive impressions and showing voters the forms as we talk about them fits that value.
This is one of the reasons why Reproductive Healthcare has become central to Democratic efforts. The threat is real, but many voters don’t see it because they don’t see that Youngkin would take away rights. Like i said, mushy.
I have said before that i like to place the state where the most volunteers show up first in a diary. A subtle but clear reward for the state and their Hope Springs volunteers. Which means this week, Virginia goes first.
VA Senate (competitive districts in stripes) Districts 24, 30 & 31
We had started knocking in Virginia on April 15th in support of Democrats in highly competitive (or expected to be) state Senate and House districts. The 2023 legislative elections will be the first election after redistricting and a lot of district lines got moved in the remap. We are especially canvassing in the new areas for the targeted districts, in some cases, planning on hitting doors in those areas at least twice.
VA House Districts 21, 22, 57, 65, 82 & 84 (competitive = stripes)
Like Ohio last summer, we have had to import organizers for several districts. I’ve served as lead organizer for 2 of these, driving more than 3 ½ hours from Arlington VA to meet with volunteers in our targeted areas. I am not alone here. Strangely, we have no problem finding organizers for our Northern Virginia canvasses. I know, surprise, right?
274 volunteers came up to knock on doors in Virginia last week. They knocked on 19,837 doors and talked to 1,479 voters. 914 of those voters answered at least some of our questions on the Issues Survey.
The Top Issue volunteers found this week in Virginia was Jobs. I was talking to a DKos commenter last night about this, and surmised that “Jobs” had replaced “Recession Concerns” as a prominent response to talk about concern over the Economy. Voters just aren’t confident about where we are going in the economic realm, but they recognize that their fears haven’t been realized (as, apparently, they expected they would be). The second most frequent concern was School Safety. Voters with children are starting to think about the new school year, some of their children ask if they will be safe to go to school and this is pretty traumatic for parents. Third were Reproductive Healthcare. Again. Concerns over Air Quality, Climate Change and the Heatwave were a close fourth (2 voters separated the two, Abortion and Climate Change).
In Virginia, 51% of the voters we talked to approved of the job President Biden was doing; 6% Disapproved. 63% approved of the job Senator Kaine was doing while 3% disapproved. 14% approved of the job that Governor Youngkin was doing. 33% disapproved of Youngkin’s performance. In Virginia, governors can’t run for re-election, which is why Gov. Youngkin’s been sniffing around the presidential race. But he needs a “victory” in November to show GOP primary voters that he can win over voters who are dismayed by the recent turn of their party. Democratic and Independent voters continue to bring that up to our volunteers.
Volunteers registered 8 new voters and re-registered 32 voters. We differentiate between the two because brand new voters are often ignored by campaigns and we hope to compensate for that somewhat by having volunteers send them post cards before the election and they are also getting robocalls thanking them for registering. But registering voters is a primary rationale behind early canvassing, and turning out voters, especially those that have just been registered is a core mission for Hope Springs from Field. Just wanted to point that out.
66 voters filled out Constituent Service Request forms. 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.
1 voter filled out an Incident Report as they witnessed an act of voter suppression, or voter intimidation, in a prior election. In this case, a voter reported 3 white men with guns patrolling “in a menacing manner” outside their heavily African-American precinct. I followed up with that voter last night, and he seemed surprised that, after we complete the form, it will make it’s way up to the Department of Justice Civil Right division before the election. One of the reasons why we collect this data on acts of voter intimidation is to prevent future occurrences. Voter Suppression is historical, as a pattern of success encourages repeated actions. Hope Springs volunteers are working to reverse that trend.
Hope Springs from Field PAC has been knocking on doors since March in a grassroots effort to prepare the 2023 and 2024 Electoral Battlegrounds in what has been called the First and Second Rounds of a traditional Five Round Canvass. We are knocking on 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 and our efforts to protect our voters, we would certainly appreciate your support:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/fistfulofsteel
Hope Springs from Field understands that volunteer to voter personal interactions are critical. Knocking on doors has repeatedly been found to be the most successful tactic to get voters to cast a ballot and that is the goal of what we do.
In North Carolina, GOP determination to suppress voters who don’t think like Republicans are matched by our own, and we are witnessing voter eagerness to return to normalcy. “These people are crazy.”
This is Hope Springs third year knocking on doors in North Carolina and we are witnessing the effects of GOP voter intimidation at the doors (and from our partner Black churches in the state). The new voter photo ID laws are shocking to many voters we talk to. This month we added more than a dozen Black churches who wanted to join our efforts to get their voters free Photo IDs.
So far, we have found 902 voters at the doors who told us they need photo IDs at their doors. 85% of them are Black voters and 90% are non-white voters. 59% of these voters are older and many will need help in collecting the documentation needed.
That is not the only issue we face. We know that many Republican legislators want to re-district (again) in this cycle to take away Democratic seats in Congress. So Hope Springs from Field has expanded our door to door efforts in North Carolina, even as we continue our focus on NC-01, NC-06, NC-13 and NC-14 in an effort to protect those seats.
268 volunteers knocked on doors in eight North Carolina counties last Saturday. They knocked on 19,403 doors and they talked to 1,406 voters. 824 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, Economic Uncertainty. Concerns over Schools, both K-12 and higher education, was second. We continue to have voters questioning whether the colleges and universities in the state could continue to attract “exceptional students from outside the state” and continue to be a diverse, challenging system for their kids. Political Stability was third, always a surprise to see that more than a few voters are worried about the state of our nation.
Biden’s Approval number among the Democratic and unaffiliated voters we talked to was 52%; remember, try to weed out Republican households in our walk lists, so these numbers basically don’t include any Republicans. Disapproval was 9%. We also continue to find more than 40% of the voters we talk to on Saturdays have 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).
54% of the voters we talked to on Saturday approved of the job Governor Roy Cooper is doing; 8% expressed disapproval.
Volunteers registered 3 new voters and re-registered 28 voters to comply with the HAVA laws. 46 voters filled out Constituent Service Request forms. These are passed along to Democratic office holders, when possible, but to the appropriate office, if not we get them to the appropriate office holder. 1 voter completed an Incident Report detailing what they could remember from an incident they witnessed of voter intimidation or suppression. We follow these up to fill in whatever blanks voters leave in the report.
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 Labor Day. 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.
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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[1] Url:
https://dailykos.com/stories/2023/7/19/2182025/-Abortion-Rights-are-on-the-2023-Ballot-in-Virginia-Weekly-Canvass-Report-4-VA-North-Carolina
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