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Canvassing California for Prop 50: UNRIG the Midterms! [1]
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Date: 2025-09-18
536 volunteers came out to knock on doors in Northern California is what will become CA-01, CA-02, CA-03 and CA-04 if Prop 50 is successful (see map below). These are basically red counties that would go Blue in Congress, and our task is to hunt down Democrats and progressive voters who support Prop 50 and build a GOTV database before November 4th. We are incorporating the lessons learned in the Ohio Issue 1 fight to guide our GOTV plan here.
Hope Springs ’ vols are all in on trying to thwart president felon’s hostile takeover of our Democracy. We all get it — the twice-impeached criminal doesn’t want to be impeached again, and there’s no doubt there are already Democrats in the house eager to file articles of impeachment on Trump. All it takes is a Democratic majority, which most people think likely in 2026. We are determined to make that happen. President felon keeps raising the stakes, and we need to counter him effectively.
“We’re just getting started,” the volunteer told me he said. What was so notable — the reason this conversation made it up to me — was that the voter wanted to give the volunteer money. You can’t make this stuff up.
“Wait, let me show you the crap I’ve gotten.” One Northern California Democrat was so incensed at the “deluge” of negative mailers against Prop 50 that he’d been collecting it — and was eager to show the Hope Springs from Field PAC [dated website ] volunteer at his door. “You’re the first [Prop 50] supporter I’ve seen.”
Volunteers knocked on 26,161 doors and talked to 2,145 voters. 1,394 of them spent time discussing the issue with a volunteer, although we did have voters give us a visceral response before shutting the door, which was also recorded in VAN. One thing volunteers don’t always buy is that a 5 (strong opposition) is as valuable as a 1 (strong support) because it allows us to cross them off the list. Not only do we not waste anymore time with them but those parallel orgs who ask receive their names to cross them off, as well. You want to spend your time and money on persuadables, not opponents.
Prop 50 Map to be voted on
We use the Issue Survey as a kind of soft introduction to the political discussion. Because these are reddish areas, we’ve found that it breaks down voter resistance to airing their views.
Keen observers may have noticed that our numbers here are lower than in other states we canvass. We think there are three reasons for this: first of all, we are encouraging more back and forth discussion, as well as extensive use of Q(uestion)-slips at the doors here. Secondly, this is a new state for us and we aren’t trying to impose our culture on volunteers here, with the thought that we will continue on into the future. This is kind of a one-time thing in California. It’s not like California is a swing state. Thirdly, there’s more separation between houses than i’ve normally seen. It’s not necessarily that there are fewer Democrats but less housing concentration.
Current Map — before Prop 50
As part of the Issue Survey, we ask voters about what is most important to them. On Saturday, the Slowing Economy was the #1 issue voters brought up in Northern California. It’s kind of interesting, because most voters do not put it this way. “I am so disappointed in (the economy),” or “I expected things to pick up,” or “I really thought we’d be doing better by now” are much more typical, but fit into the Slowing Economy pile. Redistricting was second, not a surprise given what is apparently arriving in people’s mailboxes. High Prices was third, and you don’t usually see two basically economic issues to both be in the Top 3. Of course, the high cost of living in California is a perennial issue in the state, so.
Hope Springs from Field PAC began knocking on doors in California after Labor Day, in support of Prop 50. We target Democrats and unaffiliated voters with a systematic approach that reminds them not only that Democrats care, but that 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/UNRIGtheMidterms
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. New Maps Partisan Breakdown Here’s the thing: we aren’t knocking on doors in Blue Districts. If you look at the current map (to the left), you can see they mostly hug the coast. California Democrats cover those areas well. What we are committed to doing is finding Democratic voters who support Prop 50 in the pink and red districts — mainly those who are slated to become Blue in the new map (basically the new CD’s CA-01, CA-02, CA-03 and CA-04 in the map above). To show support for a Bluer California, if you will. In these dominant Republican counties. By, you know, doing what we do best! We chose to include the DOGE question as a way to weed out any hidden MAGA supporters. 1% of the voters we talked to supported deep cuts in federal spending. 12% were opposed. 7% approved of the job Trump was doing while 49% disapproved. These two numbers tell us that our targeting was on point (an important consideration in a new state). 51% (!) of the voters we talked to approved of the job that Gov. Newsom is doing, which seems really high for his area. 12% disapproved.
But, still, we have our work cut out for us. A Politico poll found that nearly two-thirds of California voters prefer retaining the state’s independent redistricting commission authority to draw congressional lines. And Prop 50 walks a fine line in this regard.
But this is basically no different than what Hope Springs’ volunteers did in Ohio in 2023 — when we turned counties from red to blue in that special election.
Hope Springs volunteers registered 3 new voters and re-registered 12 voters, who updated their address to conform to the HAVA law. We found 55 voters who filled out Constituent Service Request forms on Saturday. 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. We did have one voter who was not supporting Prop 50 who filled one out. "Are you really going to turn it in?” he asked the volunteer.
Of course we did! Everybody deserves good government, not just those who support good government.
We knock on doors of Democratic and Independent voters and use a voter-driven approach to guide them through the Issues Survey, the CSR and Incident Reports. We record questions voters raise with a Q(uestion)-slip and record other relevant observations on an Observations form. Q-slips are sent to the relevant Democrat to respond to and Observations are entered into VAN. 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 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 Congressional Races in 2026. There is a lot of work to be done! Especially since we have had to expand the map this year.
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[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/9/18/2344166/-California?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web
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