(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Pennsylvania Heartbroken, Dismayed. "What are we doing now?" [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-07-02 One of the nice things about the digital multiverse is that we can indulge ourselves in self-similarity, the belief that most people think as we do. It’s one of the biggest reasons why it is so important to knock on doors — and, more to the point, for candidates to knock on doors. Hope Springs from Field PAC [website] volunteers from Pennsylvania have now knocked on 227,237 doors but it was the last 10,323 that were the hardest. No, it wasn’t the weather. It was the shellshock. Hope Springs organizers send out an email on Wednesdays that include a link to “reserve” a spot for Saturday’s canvass. It doesn’t mean anything, it’s a mental trick to get volunteers committed to knocking on doors. Some people click the link automatically, because it doesn’t take much time. We have never had even a third of the people who show up on a Saturday “reserve” their spot. People show up. Some people show up almost every week. Which is why Saturday’s response was important. Some people show up every Saturday. Some people click the meaningless link every week they intend to go out. These are automatic traits (and, after 4 years, you start to recognize this). Yet, every week, a handful of people who “reserve” their slot fail to show up. 2024 Electoral College Battleground Map What we tell volunteers, when they ask about this, is that letting us know if you are coming helps us predict how much turf has to get cut each week. We usually triple the number of commitments when cutting turf. So when we talk about 645 people who said they would canvass on Saturday failed to show, what was meaningful to organizers was that 645 times 3. But it wasn’t that bad. We didn’t have 1,935 extra pieces of turf left over on Saturday. (Plus, there are no leftovers — the turf gets walked next week or two.) But i’m not the only organizer who thinks, damn, i could have done something else last Friday. At least, i don’t think i am alone here. 2024 Senate Battleground Map Two Saturdays ago, on the 22nd, 631 volunteers in Pennsylvania came out to canvass. Last Saturday, 142 volunteers showed up. 96 volunteers clicked that email link to “reserve their spot” and didn’t make it. We need not talk anymore about why. But i go back to the fact that volunteers in Pennsylvania “were keenly aware of the shifting political ground underneath them and volunteers in 5 of my 6 stops mentioned the fact that 35,589 registered Democrats had switched their party affiliation to Republican last year.” We wanted to reverse that tide. We were trying to reverse that tide. So that steep decline in turnout on Saturday did not help. 57 of those volunteers who didn’t show up were from Allegheny County. They had just tasted the sweet savoy of victory last November in a highly contested county executive race, with a progressive, and felt like things were moving their way. And they had fought on, even though rare was a week in Western Pennsylvania where a volunteer (often more than one) didn’t return with the observation that “Trump is strong here.” 142 volunteers came out to knock on doors in Philadelphia and it’s metro area, and in the western and northern suburbs of Pittsburgh. They knocked on 10,323 doors and talked to 839 voters. 537 voters answered questions from at least part of the Issues Survey. The Economy was the Number 1 issue for the voters we talked to on Saturday. Housing and Insurance Issues (ie, Rent, Single Home Availability and affordability of both Housing and Insurance) were the #2 issue voters raised. Concern over the future of our Political System was third. If i had the time, i would have wanted to focus on this response this week, but other things came up. Among the voters we talked to, Biden’s Job Approval was at 46%; 10% expressed some measure of Disapproval. 61% of the voters who responded Approved of the job Sen. Casey was doing while 8% expressed disapproval. 56% approved of the job Gov. Shapiro was doing. 8% expressed disapproval. Hope Springs from Field PAC began knocking on doors again on March 2nd to set up a favorable “battle space” or foundation for Democrats in 2024. 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. The voters we talk to in these 12 Swing States 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/hopemobilization2024 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. We’ve been tracking sightings of MAGA canvassers, which have seemed to have been more evident in the press than at the doors. Volunteers brought back reports of 3 different groups and one unknown set of MAGA canvassers from last week: Turning Point Action canvassers in Allegheny and Bucks Counties, Club for Growth canvassers in 3 different counties and Trump-shirted canvassers in Allegheny County. We registered 1 new voter and re-registered 4 voters who updated their addresses for the voter file. We differentiate between the new voters and re-registering voters because brand new voters are often ignored by campaigns and we hope to compensate for that somewhat by having volunteers send them post cards before the election and they will also receive robocalls thanking them for registering. [If you are interested in participating in our Postcards to NEW Voters initiative, you can sign up here.] 31 voters filled out Constituent Service Request forms. 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. For Democrats, though, we encourage them to reach out immediately to the voter who filled out the Constituent Service Request forms and let them know they are working on the issue. This credit-taking is enormously valuable to the Democratic office-holder. 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. By starting early, and aiming towards super-compliance with some really, really onerous new voter regulations, Hope Springs from Field seeks to undermine that strategy, while informing voters about the new laws and regulations aimed at them. Our biggest expense is the Voter File. But it is also a fixed cost. That won’t change as we raise and spend more money. Printing literature is our second largest cost. Printing and mailing our our Post Cards to New Voters is our third cost and paying the fees for ActBlue is the smallest of our monthly costs. 2023 Hope Springs expenses Hope Springs is a seat-of-the-pants grassroots-driven operation. We don’t have employees but we realize that to formalize and professionalize this effort that will have to change. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/7/2/2250583/-Pennsylvania-Heartbroken-Dismayed-What-are-we-doing-now?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/