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What Voters have told us about Prosecuting Donald Trump: A Canvass Report [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-06-10  

Hope Springs from Field PAC has been knocking on doors and talking to voters every Saturday over the last 3 years as weather permits (<65° and >100°). Over that time, we have knocked on 3,887,131 doors and had in depth conversations with 172,765 voters in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Wisconsin and Virginia. And you won’t be surprised that the subject of Donald Trump has come up — frequently.

Nor will you be surprised that the topic of prosecuting Donald Trump is a popular topic among those voters who have brough up the disgraced, twice indicted (so far) and twice impeached former occupant of the Oval Office. Voters in these states have raised Trump in 6 areas: Top or Urgent Issue Question (Q2), Send a Message to Congress (Q5), Concerns about Upcoming Elections (Q6), Single Determinate Voting Issue (Q7), as well as in questions that we record on Q-Slips and general observations that volunteers record on Observation Forms.

From our own data collection, we have found Reproductive Rights and Donald Trump as the single most important drivers of how voters tell us they will vote in 2024. We talk to Democrats and Independents of Unaffiliated Voters, for the most part, although since our experience in the second Georgia Runoff we have begun including Republicans in “Mixed Households” where there is a Democratic Voter (generally women) in the house as well. Prior to the Runoff last year, we would signal for volunteers to speak only to the person on our Walk Lists where there was a Republican in the household. But among the 25,443 voters we have talked to this year, 481 have told us they were Republicans (or once were) when we asked them how they identified themselves politically.

We found a lot of Never Trumpers, especially among those who did not identify as Democrats. I can’t even remember seeing a voter who self-identified as a Democrat (Q13) use the term. “Never Trumper” seems to be the purview of Republicans or Republican-leaners. A few voters used the term who identified as “Independent,” which is a popular self-definition in these 12 Swing States. A definite majority of the voter who talk to Hope Springs from Field volunteers use this term to self-identify themselves politically.

But we have found a lot of Democrats, over each of the last 3 years, who have expressed a desire — an impatience even — to see Trump indicted on federal espionage charges. Many have called him a traitor. Some of them said so while clearly understanding the gravity of the charge. One voter i talked to in Arizona spoke about being shocked about the things the press was reporting Trump had done, and this was before the revelation or charge that Trump was holding on to nuclear secrets and U.S. war plans. An older man, someone who had served, who felt betrayed.

Of course, we all know that feeling. Even before January 6th, 2021 many of us felt like Trump had betrayed America, betrayed the constitution and betrayed fundamental American values. And we are not alone. The feeling is driving other American’s decisions about how they voted in 2020 and 2022 — and will vote in 2024.

Again, these impressions existed among voters we’ve been talking to in Swing States even before Trump’s indictment yesterday. Sad to say, that indictment is probably worse than many imagined: “The indictment of former President Donald J. Trump that was unsealed on Friday provided compelling evidence that Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents was more cavalier, and his efforts to obstruct the government’s attempts to retrieve them more blatant, than previously known.” The results of today’s canvassing should be even more enlightening.

The reddish nature of some of these states (Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Wisconsin and MONTANA!) makes these observations from voters there even more astounding. We have had a lot of voters complain about not being able to get away from FoxNews, and one voter even told a volunteer he couldn’t even sit down at his local McDonald’s because the tripe he’d have to listen to was so infuriating he was afraid he would expose his “true feelings” and be subject to violence where he lived.

Other voters over the last 3 years have mentioned to canvassers that the remember that Trump gave “highly classified,” “code-word” information to Russians in the Oval Office in the first few months of his administration. Some voters still remember 6 years later. And they “don’t trust Trump.” So they aren’t surprised,

The indictment alleges that as president, Trump gathered hundreds of classified documents owned by the United States and kept them in cardboard boxes at the White House. Some of the documents contained information about “defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack,” the document says. At the moment he ceased to be president, the indictment states, Trump was no longer authorized to possess or retain these classified documents, nor was Mar-a-Lago an authorized location for the “storage, possession, review, display, or discussion of classified documents.”

You might even say that some of these voters expected it. That’s quite a thing to admit to someone you don’t know, who just happened to knock on your door.

Here’s the thing: voters who are closer to military bases and other classified environments have shown to our volunteers that they take this kind of a lot more seriously than most other voters. The only places where volunteers have had conversation with voters about Julian Assange or Reality Winner have been close to areas with classified environs. And those voters don’t self-identify as Democrats.

They are well aware of what the law requires. Even people who didn’t betray their own feelings about Trump’s misconduct with classified information have told volunteers that they had been trained on how to handle classified information. And this particular aspect is an area where self-identified Democrats and Independents agree. They would be aware that

The law criminalizes the unauthorized retention or disclosure of information related to national defense that could harm the United States or aid its enemies. It was enacted decades before the executive branch established the current system of classifying national security secrets.

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.

It seems unlikely that Trump will go to trial for these particular charges before the election next year. There are lots of reasons for that, none of which are relevant here. So the real question is this, can Chris Christie or Asa Hutchinson successfully use this indictment to bring Trump back to earth among Republican primary voters. Or can another candidate decide that it would be useful to their candidacy. Many of us might hope that Republicans would come to their senses.

Democrats recognize that Trump’s recklessness is a key advantage for President Biden. Obviously, the last three elections have not been favorable to Trump and Biden is the only known Trump-killer. While i can’t think of an example where voters have mentioned to volunteers about what happens if someone beats Trump in the GOP primaries, voters of all stripes have talked to us about their perception of Biden vulnerabilities. And Biden has a lot of vulnerabilities if he had to face some Republican other than Trump. Biden is a great contrast to Trump, but much of that advantage would disappear against another candidate.

We know that this indictment — or a conviction — does not bar Mr. Trump from running. And as long as Republican primary voters buy into his strategy saying that law enforcement has been hijacked by President Biden to take out his strongest opponent for re-election, Biden is golden. Because the swing voters we have spoken to (listened to, really) aren’t buying it.

And Democrats are helped by the likely delay in his espionage/conspiracy trial.

A key next question is whether other indictments will follow, either in Washington or, less likely, in New Jersey—where the conduct at Bedminster took place. Next will come, presumably, motions to dismiss and a lot of discovery disputes and litigation under the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA). The CIPA litigation will tend to drag out. Other cases heavy with classified material have often required interlocutory appeals on CIPA matters, so don’t expect this case to go to trial quickly.

Because Biden is the Trump-killer. The primary defender of Democracy. Voters don’t say that, but the hints are heavy and often. “At least Biden can beat Trump.” “Who else do we have?”

It is important to remember that Biden’s hold on voters disappears when Donald Trump is no longer the Republican Most Talked About.

Finally, we have to remember how history will record this. Trump is now amongst some of American History’s greatest Traitors.

Those accused of spying under the act include Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in the 1950s for purportedly giving nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union; Aldrich Ames, a C.I.A. officer, who was charged for revealing the identities of American informants to the Soviet Union in 1994; and Robert Hanssen, an F.B.I. agent, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2002 after confessing to selling secrets to the Russians.

One voter told a volunteer that Trump had replaced Benedict Arnold has our greatest traitor. But that was a Democrat. Many of us already “hate” Trump. It’s how those who don’t affiliate with a political party who are going to decide how Trump fares in our history. We have lots of clues here. But we aren’t knocking on doors to determine how Donald Trump will go down in the history books; we are trying to shape the Electoral Battlefield in 2024. Talking to voters, on their doorsteps, gives us other information, though, along the way. We are simply sharing what we are learning in this regard.

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 upon you!

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/6/10/2165787/-What-Voters-have-told-us-about-Prosecuting-Donald-Trump

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