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Our first canvass report for Texas. Because HSFF is grassroots driven... [1]
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Date: 2025-03-12
The obvious question first: with Jeanne Shaheen’s retirement, will HSFF expand into New Hampshire this summer? That seems very likely, especially if we can raise the funds for expansion, given that we are already planning on expanding into Maine. As you might imagine, we have basically grown out of our original model based on volunteer organizers from the (mostly) Obama, Clinton, Bernie and Biden campaigns.
Last week, Arizona had the most Hope Springs from Field PAC [website which needs to be re-tooled] volunteers of the first (national) canvass. But weather interfered this week, and our Tucson-area volunteers postponed Saturday’s canvass so that Texas earned that distinction last weekend.
In Texas, we are modifying our strategy from Congressional District-based to one based on state legislative districts. TX-15 remains as a focus (it is the only technically competitive CD in the state), but considerable effort will be put into bringing the HSFF approach to state legislative districts that are (or should be) more competitive. Our Texas volunteers are determined to crack the MAGA hold on the state.
As part of this, we hope to set up our first state-based spin-off, especially since that means we won’t be confined to a stringent fund-raising restrictions of a federal political committee. Moving forward, expanding outward — relying on what works to elect Democrats.
There is also a Senate seat up this year, but it’s hard to call it competitive at this point. But it is clear that our suburban-based voter contact model is probably easier to expand here than other groups’ urban models.
Last year, 17,034 volunteers came out to knock on doors in Texas. On the 1st, 107 volunteers showed up while 163 came out on Saturday. Last year, we knocked on 1,217,909 doors in Texas. In our first week back, we knocked on 7,629 doors while we hit 11,850 doors. Great canvassing weather in Texas.
Hope Springs volunteers talked to 98,466 voters last year at their doors in Texas. We talked to another 81,739 Texans whose doors we knocked on but no one answered through other means later than week, for a total of 180,205. On March 1st, we talked to 600 voters and on Saturday, we talked to 964 voters and had in-depth conversations with 390 and 614 of them, respectively, guided by our Issues Questionnaire.
We did add one thing to our questionnaire: we are asking voters whether they approve of the administration’s cuts to federal programs and agencies. Given that we are talking to more unaffiliated voters this year, we are offering that as a way to screen MAGA-leaning voters that we talk to.
Other than that, the Issues Surveys aren’t really changing. We may modify it again, if necessary. Voters like to tell us what is important to them!
On March 1st, Prices was was the Number 1 issue for the Texans we talked and Inflation was the # 1 Issue on Saturday. Border Security was second on the 1st and Housing and Insurance Issues (ie, Rent, Single Home Availability and affordability of both Housing and Insurance) were the #2 issue voters raised on Saturday. A brand new issue, Border Access, was third for both weekends. Voters were complaining about how difficult it had become to cross the border “to buy the things we need.” Things voters say, but isn’t what they voted for???
Hope Springs from Field PAC began 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. As i mentioned above, we are asking voters if they approve of the sudden and deep cuts in federal programs and agencies led by Elon Musk. We did have voters actually mention Musk in the survey (in the what is the most urgent issue facing our country query). That was different. On the 1st, 8% of the Texans we talked to said they viewed these cuts in a favorable light, it was 7% on Saturday. 38% thought just the opposite on the 1st — 52% said they disapproved on Saturday! Only 15% of the voters we talked to had a favorable impression of the job Trump was doing (41% disapproved) on the 1st and 17% approved on Saturday (37% disapproved). We won’t know for awhile (given the newness of the question) whether these two questions are correlated.
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