Hope Springs from Field PAC volunteers resumed knocking on doors this weekend in Virginia. Virginia has state legislative races this year, and its General Assembly is split — Republicans is one seat advantage over half in the House of Delegates (the lower body) and Democrats have a two seat advantage in the state senate. The presence of a supposedly moderate Republican in the governor’s mansion (Glenn Youngkin) who has substantial personal wealth he is willing to spend on changing that equation and the threat it presents to Reproductive Rights in the state is the reason why we are involved in this “special election.” (Special Elections are part of our mandate, in addition to Early Organizing and GOTV/Election Protection.)
But this diary isn’t really about Virginia. It is about Reproductive Freedom and the reactions we hear from voters around the 10 Swing States were we canvass every weekend, where weather permits.
As i wrote in an earlier diary, the surprising resilience of Reproductive Rights among the voters, Democrats and “independents”, we talked to in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Virginia is the big takeaway from knocking on doors. From what we are hearing from voters in these swing states is that President Biden has made a logical and obvious decision to make the 2024 campaign all about our Right to Privacy and to have control of our own bodies.
Every weekend, now, it seems we find a voter who tells one of our volunteers that she had had an abortion, or they knew someone had had an abortion (which can also refer to themselves). Almost as frequently, a voter — mother or father — says they are afraid their child will get into a situation where government makes it even more difficult to make an incredibly difficult decision in this regard. They don’t necessarily say that Reproductive Justice is their Number #1 issue in the nation or the state, although many do. But where we see this jump out is in their response to the question, “If there is a single issue that will determine how you vote, what is it?”
Abort Voter = Said Abortion was Driving their Vote (Q6)
Only in Florida and Montana were there more responses to that query than Abortion driving voters on how they were going to vote in upcoming elections. A year after Roe v Wade being recklessly, undemocratically overturned. The only surprise in this data, based upon what we have been finding over the last two years, is that Pennsylvania isn’t higher on that list. In Wisconsin, Virginia (which has elections this year), North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Ohio, Reproductive Freedom is very much in the news, with voters having legitimate fears about impending restrictions. Of course, the same is true in Florida, but we have a very high mix of senior citizens and Hispanics in our canvass mix so that might be skewing results here. Because we canvass on Saturday mornings, i do have to note that we don’t reach a lot of voters with younger children.
And not everyone who responds to our Issues Survey answers this particular question (Q6). When compared to the other answers to the single issue question, we find that resiliency to which i was referring. We are way beyond anger — although the anger probably remains — we are seeing determination. A year away from the last campaign, a year before the next election, voters — Democrats and unaffiliated — are telling us that Reproductive Rights are driving them to vote, and how they will vote. The reason why we differentiate the responses to Q6 (single issue that will determine how you vote) and Q2 (most urgent issue facing the country) is because voters may not name Reproductive Rights as their most urgent issue when they identify it as the issue driving their vote in 2024 — and vice versa. So the total population amongst those we canvassed which has named Reproductive Freedom as a key issue to voters is much higher. Clearly, there are voters who name Abortion Rights to both, but not as often as you might think.
Here’s the thing: when asking voters to take this questionnaire, we try to move them quickly through the survey. If they don’t have an immediate response we tell them it’s not a test. And then try to move on to the next question. On especially this question (is there a single issue that will determine how you vote), if it doesn’t pop up immediately, it probably isn’t valid. But that’s also true to other responses, as well. So we are recording gut responses, and the resiliency of this issue in an off-election year is obvious.
Hope Springs from Field PAC has been knocking on doors since March in a grassroots effort to prepare the 2024 Electoral Battleground in what has been called the First and Second Rounds of a traditional Five Round Canvass. We are canvassing 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:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/fistfulofsteel
Hope Springs from Field PAC 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.
The fact that we were finding voters talking about how important Reproductive Rights were to their upcoming vote (in 2022) but weren’t saying that it was the “most urgent issue facing the country” was the very reason why we started asking “is their a single issue that will determine your vote.” Volunteers would return from knocking on doors and ask why, if voters were talking to them about abortion, why weren’t they naming it as their “top issue facing the country.” After two weeks on this quandary, we added Q6 to the Issues Survey — and, boy, did the results stand out from the beginning.
When candidates saw those results around Labor Day last year, more than a few said to us, “We were right!” to rely on the issue in their campaigns.
President Biden is doing the same thing. “Make no mistake, this election is about freedom on the ballot,” the president argues.
His team believes abortion rights will prove to be a critical motivator for suburban women, older women and even young men. And they think that a key battleground state Biden lost in 2020 — North Carolina — is in play this time around in large part because of abortion.
When you look back at the data above, from voters at their doors, you can see that the Biden team is right on track. Suburban voters in North Carolina resemble those found in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin more than those found in Arizona, Georgia or Florida. However, we continue to find significant support among African-American voters in Georgia and North Carolina, most of who do not identify as Abortion Voters, and are far less likely to mention abortion as a Top Issue when responding to our Issues Survey at their door. Some of our volunteer organizers have speculated that this was so in Georgia as a substantial amount of our volunteer canvassers are African-American and they *speculate* that even if they (African-American voters) were more keen on Reproductive Freedom than they admit, they were unlikely to do so to another African-American. Since i am not, i really can’t speak to this.
Hope Springs from Field volunteers have been knocking on doors in Swing States since the first Georgia Senate Runoffs with an Issues Survey, Constituent Service Request forms, collecting key data for Democrats to use next fall. We knock on the doors of Democrats and Independent voters (GOP households are eliminated when we make our walk lists), registering (or re-registering) voters in our super-compliance tactic to work to eliminate the possibility of our voters being rejected when they cast their ballots. In that vein, we are also helping voters get Voter Photo IDs in states that have changed the rules and now require such. In those states that allow it, we have organized volunteers to help voters “cure” their ballots when their absentee ballot has been flagged as incomplete.
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/fistfulofsteel
Thank you for your support. This work depends on you!