One of the most interesting things about canvassing (as far as i am concerned) is listening to voter concerns and issues prioritization from voters at the door.  Many volunteers tell us that voters have told them, no one has ever asked me before — about their feelings and things that interest them.  This is one of the most important aspects about the Hope Springs from Field PAC [website] approach to canvassing.  Make no mistake, we didn’t invent this approach.  In a very real sense, we have combined some of the best practices we’ve observed over the years in a system that mirrors the first and second round of canvassing in the old, traditional five round canvass system.  These are the canvassing rounds that used to be required to clean up voter rolls before VAN, data integration, modelling and artificial intelligence made the technical (or backend) aspects of the 1st and 2nd rounds seem redundant.

Yet, the technical aspects didn’t factor in the human aspects of this approach.  In my weekly canvass wrap-up diary, someone criticized early organizing with this argument: “The only reason the DNC is canvassing this early is because the DNC is just a data mining operation and no longer a useful part of the Party. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest calling and knocking in June gives a candidate an advantage.”  Now i could have responded all day about how inaccurate i thought it was but i was mostly astounded that anyone would think we were the Democratic National Committee.  Boy, would i love to rule that roost for a day/week/month/year(s)!

Now i can’t speak for the DNC (never had access to their “data mining” operations) but i can speak to why we collect information from voters and how we use that information.  From the more than 100 political campaigns i’ve been involved in, i can also speak to the advantage that knocking in June can give a candidate.  I have thoughts.

First of all, this race is going to be tight.  Knowing that, you really can’t start too early trying to track down and identify voters.  Or, to raise the Democratic flag.  Especially after 2020, where Democrats sharply reduced field operations because of Covid, we have found numerous voters being appreciative that we knocked on their door — often out of fear that Democrats had abandoned canvassing.

Secondly, starting early means that we can find, train, acclimate and mobilize more volunteers.  I always say that campaigns tend to exhibit exponential growth, and the earlier you start the higher your graph will go.  Introducing volunteers to canvassing in a more passive approach gives them the confidence to go into the persuasion approach after Labor Day.

Third, there’s a reason why precinct captains under Democratic machines knocked on doors 4 times a year during an election year.  They were acting as a Dynamic Feedback Loop prior to accompanying candidates in the 4th and final precinct captain round.  Let’s face it, voters remember their “anger” issues first, and precinct captains in the machines used their familiarity with their voters to balance the anger voters might have at the moment.

Hope Springs from Field’s approach acts as a buffer, as well.  Part of the purpose of walking with paperwork, such as the Issues Survey, is to leave the impression that Democrats are listening, that Democrats Care!  But showing voters the papers before we ask them the questions not only give voters a feeling of control, but it tends to make the interaction happen faster.  One voter told me, when asking for his feedback, that he “looked it over and decided what questions he was going to answer” up front.  “Next,” he said he told the volunteer when they got to a question he wasn’t going to answer.

But one of the questions that harkens back to the Dynamic Feedback Look is #5 in the Issues Survey: If you could send one message to your Member of Congress, what would it be.  We send those along to their campaign, giving the Member (or campaign) the opportunity to answer and get the credit.  We are, indeed, setting them up to win, not through persuasion but through opportunity.

If you’ve read my diaries before, you know i can talk about this all day.  I believe in this approach, and i’ve won campaigns in this approach.  And perhaps the biggest reason why is that it allows the campaign to integrate words directly from voters into their message and messaging.  Hope and Change didn’t come from a focus group in 2007, it came from listening to words and see those bubble up.

We can see that happening right now, as well.  The CBS/YouGov poll offers voters a list of issues to choose from, and you can see how the voters prioritize pre-packaged list of issues.  That’s not what we do.  Hope Springs volunteers walk with a (mostly) fill-in-the-blank survey.  Which means we allow voters the opportunity to define themselves and the issues that are important to them. 

Over the past year, the issue that has emerged as increasingly important to the voters we talk to, the voters in the swingy, suburban areas of the Swing States is the issue of Housing (and housing insurance) affordability and availability.  We started to hear about this last Summer, and didn’t really understand how to categorize it in the beginning.  But the more that voters talked about this issue, and more they filled out what it meant to them, the easier it was to understand how important this issue was to voters in these swingy areas.

I could have posted the spreadsheet all the way back to March 2nd and you wouldn’t see much change from what we’ve found over the last 2 months.  The only really dramatic change in voter responses has really been the spread of concern over Political Violence, (Political) Extremism and Elections/Security from the Atlanta area (when they thought they would have a Trump trial there) to the rest of the country.  In fact, since the Georgia trial has been successfully challenged (or postponed), voters in Georgia are far less concerned about that basket of issues than in most other states.

Remember, unlike the pubic polling you see in the media, these aren’t responses from an entire state or even entire Congressional District.  These are — outside of Georgia, Montana, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin — responses from the swingy suburbs in the swingy Congressional Districts in these states.  We don’t really canvass in blue areas — most of the blue areas are ably covered by the local Democratic parties.  

Hope Springs from Field PAC began knocking on doors again on March 2nd.  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.

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:

Relational campaigning like this, face-to-face, with volunteers at voter’s doors is always stronger when it starts early, and is followed up by the candidate and their campaign’s interaction.  Hope Springs volunteers are laying the groundwork for the personal interactions that will come this Fall.  And we are proud to do so.  That doesn’t mean that we don’t encounter voters who feel like the commenter does.  But as the weather gets better, voters are more welcoming and willing to share.  We have to take advantage of that opportunity.

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.