Michigan is holding steady, sort of. The smallest decline for Biden is in the Midwest.
Do you remember how you felt last Friday and Saturday? Hell, some of us are still in shock. Where are you? Are you reading this in a safe Democratic state? In a safe Democratic district?
Field PAC gives hope (website) vVolunteers are not knocking on doors in safe Democratic states. On the contrary, we targeted swing counties in swing states and asked our volunteers to go to those areas every week. In addition, we asked volunteers to look for evidence that MAGA teams were knocking on doors in those areas as well. And we found it.
Volunteers in Michigan have now knocked on 286,560 doors. They have encountered MAGA recruiters and MAGA literature. So when they say: I can’t do anything with this (post-debate) weekendyou kind of let it go. As I keep saying, we want to make sure that everyone who is collecting votes is trained and ready to collect votes during the GOTV period – the most important time to knock on doors. The work we are doing now, knocking on doors, is GOTV-plus work. Everyone knows that the hardest work is ahead of us.
I knocked on doors last Saturday. Not in Michigan, but I understand why the volunteers were a little suspicious. A volunteer called to process his grief. From my *own* Experience, the fear was worse than reality. Not a single voter I spoke to (in North Carolina) talked about the debate. I think only one of them mentioned Trump.
But my experience wasn’t necessarily the same as the other volunteers. One person said a voter asked her, “What are we doing here?” No explanation or background. Just a question. (She wrote it on a questionnaire.)
Another volunteer came back and told the organizer that it was difficult to smile at the voters’ door (we train volunteers to smile when the door opens – that may be the only impression they make on a voter).
And there we were/are. We started from scratch, or rather, from the beginning.
Last weekend showed me that our volunteers do not have as much faith in the system as I thought. If they had had more faith in this approach, they would not have been so scared after Biden’s debate appearance. But there we were/are.
The other important lesson from last Saturday is that we need to (and do) share our literature.
One of the biggest changes we have seen this week is in the political forecasters. As the Crystal Ball notes: “President Biden’s performance in the debate was so poor that we had to rethink some of our assumptions about the race.” They put Michigan back in the toss-up category, which is reflected in the Consensus Electoral College map this week.
But we could feel it on the ground. 89 volunteers who had reserved a place at the campaign last Saturday did not show up. The number of volunteers who showed up was not much higher. Statistics like that scare the hell out of me.
As I said, I have no insight here. I’m not calling this week because Thursday is a holiday. We may never really know why so many people signed up and then dropped out. It is what it is.
124 volunteers came out last Saturday to knock on doors in Michigan to knock on doors in the wavering gray (and pink) counties (MI-3, MI-4, MI-7 and MI-8)We expect in MI-10 and MI-11 (if required) before the end of the month. We are a month ahead of last year, but that is mainly because our volunteers couldn’t wait to get started.
Hope Springs Volunteers knocked at 9,262 doors last Saturday and spoke to 775 voters500 of these voters answered at least some of the survey questions.
(Higher) prices and inflation was the most common response when we asked voters what their biggest concerns were in Michigan on Saturday. We hear the same thing in every state: questions about when prices will return “to normal.” Housing and insurance issues (e.g. rent, availability of single-family homes, and affordability of housing and insurance) were the second most frequently raised topics. Concern about (Presumably political) instability was the third topic we heard at the door.
Field PAC gives hope On March 2, the campaign began knocking on doors again, a grassroots effort to prepare the field in what are known as the first and second rounds of a traditional five-round campaign. We are taking this effort to the doors of Democrats and unaffiliated voters with a systematic approach that reminds them not only that Democrats care, but that Democrats are committed to providing the best government possible for all Americans.
Of course, we rely on grassroots support, so if you support local/grassroots organizing, voter registration (and tracking), and our efforts to protect our voters, we would greatly appreciate your support:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/hopemobilization2024
Hope springs from the field understands that personal contact between volunteers and voters is crucial. Door knocking has been shown repeatedly to be the most successful tactic in getting voters to vote, and that is the goal of our work.
Biden’s approval among Michiganders we spoke to was 51% last Saturday, not at its lowest point. In fact, Biden’s drop in Michigan was at the low end of the scale; only Montana and Maryland had smaller percentage drops. 9% expressed some level of disapproval. 58% of voters who responded approved of Governor Whitmer’s job. did, while 6% expressed disapproval. Some voters told our volunteers that Gretch would make a good president.
Volunteers 3 new voters registered And 16 voters newly registered in accordance with federal law (HAVA). Again, we note that we distinguish between new voters and existing voters because the former are often forgotten (or lumped in with their family) during the GOTV campaign and first-time voters require special attention! And Hope Springs will again be running special GOTV efforts next year to get young new voters to the polls.
43 voters have filled out voter support forms. We send completed CSRs to the elected Democrats who are responsible for the requested functions. However, if the office is held by a Republican (and there is no Democrat to fill the request), we still send them. However, we encourage Democrats to immediately contact the constituent who completed the Constituent Service Request forms and let them know that they are working on the issue. This recognition is extremely valuable to the Democratic incumbent.
BWe knock on the doors of Democratic and independent voters. At each door, we leave a piece of “show the flag” literature, something that tells them we were there and hopefully strengthens the Democratic brand. The literature focuses on the things voters told us last fall were important to them and is designed to appeal to every voter.
The main focus of our voter outreach, however, is the Issues Survey, where we ask voters about their opinions and concerns. Voters’ questionnaire responses are entered into VAN and made available to all Democratic candidates who use VAN after the state primary. The creation of this type of data is not done with a specific goal in mind, but rather with the purpose of engaging voters and creating a data set that any Democratic candidate can use against a Republican. (We also provide Issues Surveys, incident reports, and voter services request forms at the churches we visit, but we don’t list numbers for these, partly because we don’t always get the results back, but also because we like to compare like with like.)
Hope Springs has focused on states that have contested Senate and/or electoral votes in 2024, as well as congressional districts that will be redistricted in a way that will provide opportunities or vulnerabilities for Democrats next year (particularly those where a Republican won a congressional district that voted for Biden in 2022). There’s a lot to do! Especially since we had to expand the map this year.
By starting early and targeting compliance with some really onerous new voting regulations, Hope springs from the field seeks to undermine this strategy while simultaneously informing voters about the new laws and regulations targeting them.
Additionally, since this is an election year, we are reintroducing the New Voter Postcards component to our voter outreach, both to new voters we meet at their doors and to new voters we reach through the voter database.
Our largest expense is voter registration. But it is also a fixed cost. That will not change as we raise and spend more money. Printing literature is our second largest expense. Printing and mailing our postcards to new voters is our third expense, and paying ActBlue fees is the smallest of our monthly expenses.
Hope Springs is a spontaneous, grassroots project. We have no employees, but we realize that this needs to change in order to formalize and professionalize this project.
But here’s the reality: Identifying single-issue voters and constitutional amendment supporters and conducting GOTV (get-out-the-vote) costs us more money than our normal voter canvassing because this issue keeps driving up volunteer turnout. That means we have to buy more lights to distribute and make other smaller expenses (like water for the volunteers). So here you go:
If you can support our efforts to protect Democratic voters, especially in minority communities, and expand voting rights, and believe in grassroots initiatives to increase voter participation and election protection, please help:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/hopemobilization2024
If you prefer to send a check, you can find our mailing address via the link at the bottom of the page. Thank you for your support. This work depends on you!
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