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Hope Springs/Democrats' Message to Voters: We're Listening [1]

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Date: 2025-02-04

2024 didn’t go as expected. Right? We can all agree on that.

Hope Springs from Field PAC [dated website] volunteers certainly feel that way, and a number of us have been focused intensely on understanding what we did right and what we did wrong in the last cycle.

Here’s the thing: we’ve gotten a lot of mixed messages in that regards. In Pennsylvania, state party leaders have told us we (both HSFF and party orgs) were wrong in taking over GOTV efforts after Labor Day. They are not wrong, voter mobilization was more successful in the areas where Hope Springs volunteers maintained contact with the voters we’d been talking to in the past 4 years. But in Nevada, local Harris field organizers told me they wished they’d understand the data we collected better (and indicated we hadn’t reached enough Nevadans) before they made their election mobilization plan.

IOW, we need to adjust our “business” (or volunteer) model going forward.

The one thing there seems to be universal support for is our method of voter contact. In Wisconsin, a longtime field organizer there said they got better reaction from voters when they mentioned “our volunteers had been in their neighborhoods asking voters about their opinions.” In that sense, not only have we been encouraged to continue on with our method of Early Voter Contact — but challenged to expand upon it, to reach more voters in more places.

We laughingly refer to this approach as the (first) Frazier catch phrase: “We’re listening.” We collect a lot of data with our Issues Survey that we use to begin engagement with the voters we talk to. But it’s not just in asking these questions. it’s also how we ask them. Volunteers are trained to be as transparent as possible, showing sometimes skeptical voters the survey itself (which is why it is designed to be a single page). It allows those so inclined to be picky about the questions they respond to.

The fact is that it is this transparent approach to voter contact that keeps voters responding and sometimes even continue talking beyond the amount of time they planned. I know that i can remember a voter coming to the door, telling me they had to leave “in a minute,” taking the survey in his hands and asking, “do you need this back?” For the next 25 minutes, he answered questions, asked questions about the purpose “of this question next to another question,” wondered how his responses compared to his neighbors and offered comments about politics in general beyond what we were asking.

It’s not that unusual a reaction at the door. Because voters want to tell us what they are thinking — sometimes emphatically. And they want their elected officials (and party leaders) to know what they are thinking — which does happen.

We’ve gotten a lot — a lot — of positive feedback from voters about Hope Springs’ approach at their doors. Hope Springs volunteers have been talking to voters we’d contacted after the election to find out how we lost in 2024. We’ve talked to 21,847 voters (mostly over the phone) and have gotten overwhelmingly positive feedback about the Issues Survey and our Constituent Service Requests that we walk with. Voters have volunteered their impression about being asked about their opinions and need for public services. We already knew this — volunteers get told this at their doors all the time. But the fact that some voters remembered after the election was over seems significant.

As encouraging as that might seem, it is totally dependent upon our finances. Like probably every other grassroots or Progressive org that survived the 2024 cycle, Hope Springs came out of last year with debt that will have to be repaid. Like always happens in highly competitive elections.

Hope Springs from Field PAC begins knocking on doors again on March 1st. We target 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. The voters we talk to continue to tell us they come away more invested in governance and feel more favorably towards Democrats in general because of our approach.

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/hopemobilization 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.

Recent news articles have talked about the challenge that Democrats face going forward.

Blue states are ceding population to red states. Voter registration figures are mostly headed in the wrong direction. More Americans are identifying with the G.O.P. than with Democrats. And Democrats lost ground last year among core constituencies including lower-income, Latino and younger voters as Mr. Trump swept every battleground state.

Elsewhere, “poll[ing] suggests that people do not view the Democratic Party as an appealing alternative.” In our own follow-up with the voters we talked to last year, that’s not what we heard. “No one’s ever asked me before,” is something Hope Springs volunteers hear from voters. This kind of feedback makes our volunteers want to carry on.

The map looks familiar. Sorta. We are changing our approach, things like target areas, dependent upon local conditions. We will continue knocking on doors in the 7 2024 Swing States: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. To these, we will add Maine (likely competitive Senate seat), Florida and Ohio (“open” Senate seats). Gotta agree with this conclusion, “Democrats must become more competitive in more places, both to compete for the presidency and especially for the Senate.”

We know how to do that!

But in other ways, our map is changing. One reason why we are expanding the map is because there are indications there will be a lot of open seats in the House next year. These are opportunities that cannot be ignored.

Hope Springs from Field is primarily focused on listening to voters in the effort to bring them (back?) into the fold. One of the biggest things we learned this last year was how important our auxiliary effort by walking with Constituent Service Request forms was to the voters who chose to fill them out was. That’s tomorrow’s topic.

Printing the literature we leave at voter’s doors (or hands) was our biggest expense last year. We still have printing bills of $52,565.12 left from last year. Our second biggest expense is the Voter File and that’s something we have to pay for up front before we start again this year.

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/hopemobilization

If you would rather send a check, you can follow that link for our mailing address at the bottom of the ActBlue page. Thank you for your support. This work depends upon you!

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[1] Url: https://dailykos.com/stories/2025/2/4/2301307/-Hope-Springs-Democrats-Message-to-Voters-We-re-Listening?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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