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GOTV in Ohio, Knocking Doors in Pennsylvania. Some Things Just Never Change [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-07-20

Volunteers for Hope Springs from Field PAC in Pennsylvania and Ohio understand the stakes in this election. In Ohio, especially, they understand just how critical the results of their votes next November will be. In Pennsylvania, a lot of voters we have talked to think they know who the nominees will be, in other words, they have said they think the GOP primary is pre-determined. The non-Democrats we have engaged indicate they are waiting to see what David McCormick proposes and runs on. What is most interesting to me is that the Pennsylvanians we’ve talked to this year don’t believe that the incumbent (Bob Casey) has an inherent advantage because he is the sitting Senator. And it’s not because they think McCormick is a strong candidate (he lost the primary in 2022), or even that he is rich enough to fund his own race. Pennsylvania has a history of tossing out incumbent senators running for re-election, or at least a memory of doing so.

But our volunteers in Ohio seem more confident they are going to re-elect their senator than those in Pennsylvania seem. Which is odd, because the consensus is that Pennsylvania leans Dem while Ohio is a toss-up. But they tell us that people always underestimate Sherrod Brown. And no one says they are afraid of Matt Dolan, Bernie Moreno, Frank LaRose or Warren Davidson. Yet.

Saturday was our second week of knocking on doors in Ohio with a supplemental Issues Canvass. At the request of both our volunteers and outside groups (!), we are asking the Ohio voters we talk to about their support for Issue 1, which is designed by Republicans in the Ohio legislature to increase the amount of voter support needed to add something to the Ohio state constitution. Supporters of Reproductive Healthcare in the state are right to believe that this special election (on Issue 1) is designed to circumvent their efforts to add a constitutional right to an abortion in Ohio. This week, we should know whether enough signatures were submitted and thus qualifying that amendment for a popular vote.

Because we have outside groups sending us extra people, we really increased our numbers. 739 volunteers showed up to knock on doors in Ohio on Saturday. We are knocking on doors in three Congressional Districts (OH-01 represented by Democrat Greg Landsman (the grey CD on the lower left), OH-09, Marcy Kaptur (the pink CD on the top left) and OH-13, Emilia Sykes (the grey CD on the top right)) as well as the Columbus and Dayton areas. But the presence of Issue 1 has dramatically increased our efforts as we have added a GOTV component as well as a supplemental question to our Issues Survey.

We knocked on 50,104 doors on Saturday and talked to 3,697 voters. I have a fellow political consultant who always tells me (and, last week, me and my wife) how great a self-promoter i am because i focus on the numbers. But this bares repeating: We knocked on 50,104 doors on Saturday. 50 with a K. 2,244 of those voters answered at least some of our questions on the Issues Survey.

We are also asking voters two supplemental questions concerning the August 8th special election (where Issue 1 is on the ballot). So far, Hope Springs from Field volunteers have found 2,386 voters who plan to vote against Issue 1. This does not include people who have already voted, nor does it include people who we have been told plan to do so. This also caused a little bit of a ruffle among our volunteers. We record those names down on our Observation Forms, for follow-up. The main reason why we want to follow up with them is that we want to ask them if they have decided on their vote plan, when and how they will cast their ballot. It seems simple, but it allows the voter to speak for themselves. We don’t really want to rely on second-hand information, even though it is usually spot on.

Climate Issues, including worries about the Canadian wildfires and the heatwave occurring elsewhere, were the Top Concern in Ohio this week. Reproductive Healthcare was the secondly most cited concern. This is hardly a surprise since a lot of our volunteers were wearing t-shirts that referred to this. Defending Democracy was the third most frequently mentioned concern, with lots of comments about what Republicans will do next when they lose this election on changing the Ohio Constitution.

Joe Biden’s Approval numbers among the Ohioans we talked to was 58% last Saturday; his Disapproval number fell to 5%. Senator Brown’s Job Approval was 68% with only 2% of the voters we talked to on Saturday expressing Disapproval. Approval of Governor DeWine, meanwhile, was 18%; Disapproval was 37% last Saturday. These spikes (or dips) are a direct result of people’s attitudes towards Issue 1 and the August special election. Issue 1 has been really clarifying for the voters we talk to and so their attitudes towards the Democrats we asked them about served to represent their opposition to changing the state constitution to benefit conservative positions.

Hope Springs from Field volunteers registered 16 new voters. We also helped 169 more voters update 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 for newly registered voters, and even add Voter Video Chains this cycle.

327 voters filled out Constituent Service Request forms. 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. We have even had candidates walk with Hope Springs volunteers because they had received one of these requests and wanted to understand how we collect them.

Hope Springs from Field PAC has been knocking on doors since March in a grassroots 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 canvassing 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/hope4ohio

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.

385 volunteers came out to knock on doors in Pennsylvania last Saturday. The grey Congressional Districts (PA-01, PA-07 & PA-17) represent most of where we are targeting, but we also walking on the Mainline and in minority neighborhoods in Philadelphia as well. Hope Springs volunteers knocked on 28,759 doors last Saturday and talked to 2,027 voters. 1232 of those voters answered questions to at least part of the Issues Survey.

Jobs was the most frequent response to our question about voter’s top concern on Saturday in Pennsylvania. Reproductive Healthcare was the second most frequent response this week, and there was quite a bit of variation how this was expressed, including comments about sending their daughters to college in states where they are more restricted. LGBT Rights was third, including concerns over the safety of this community outside the local area. Gay Pride parades were specifically mentioned.

Biden Approval among the Pennsylvanians we talked to continued to come in at 53% last Saturday while 9% expressed some measure of Disapproval. 64% of the voters who responded Approved of the job Sen. Casey was doing while 6% expressed Disapproval. 58% of the voters we talked to thought Gov. Shapiro was doing a good job, 6% said they Disapproved. Remember that each week, we are hitting doors in different neighborhoods, which can account for sharp deviations in results (although looking at the graphic, there doesn’t seem to be much variation here!). There is no effort to make these responses statistically significant. This is just raw data. It is not a poll.

Volunteers registered 6 new voters in Pennsylvania (most of whom had turned 18 in the past year) and re-registered 44 voters in compliance with Federal (HAVA) law. 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 we are finding lots of teens who just turned legal age whose parents (primarily mothers) are insisting they register.

2 voters filled out an Incident Report (in Philadelphia) about issues they witnessed in a prior election. We have been building a database of Incident Reports, and reports we collected in Pennsylvania previously have been used to request an extension of time before a precinct closed.

95 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.

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.

Ohio Issue 1 opponent

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 seeks to undermine that strategy, while informing voters about the new laws and regulations aimed at them.

If you are able to donate to our efforts to fight against Issue 1, identify abortion rights supporters, protect our voters, especially in minority communities, expand the electorate, please help:

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/hope4ohio

Thank you for your support. This work depends upon you!

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/7/20/2180510/-GOTV-in-Ohio-Knocking-Doors-in-Pennsylvania-Some-Things-Just-Never-Change

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