(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Tracking MAGA Canvassing in the Swing States over Labor Day Weekend [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-09-09 But it seemed to take awhile. Publicity before Door Knocking, i guess. Millions have been claimed to have been donated to these MAGA orgs long before we began to see evidence that they were knocking on doors in the swingy areas where Hope Springs volunteers had been knocking for months. You can see from the graphic above that MAGA canvassing has been growing in the areas where Hope Springs volunteers have been knocking on doors. Not really a surprise, since they have been telling reporters they were out and about. We have started to run across MAGA canvassers out when we were knocking on doors on Saturdays. That evidence was generally through door hangers or other lit, but we’d occasionally had volunteers come across MAGA canvassers in their own turf. These numbers represent what volunteers saw and the groups they saw. So if a volunteer sees multiple groups of the same canvassers, it is still 1. Hope Springs from Field PAC [ website ] volunteers don’t always find evidence of MAGA canvassers every week. But we document it when we do. But, again, you wouldn’t necessarily expect to find a MAGA canvasser at the same doors that we knocked on. Hope Springs focused on Democrats and unaffiliated households and while there are times we have found that the unaffiliated voter doors are in both our and their universes, it hadn’t been that typical until last month. Hope Springs volunteers rarely came across MAGA canvassers in person. We mostly found lit left behind. And lit can accumulate weeks. A little explanation, these numbers represent what our volunteers saw that weekend. When volunteers start to come across MAGA lit or canvassers, they tend to come across more — they are walking the same area as the conservative activists. So if a volunteer sees multiple sightings of canvassers from the same group, it is still recorded as a single event. So even if we found a large group of MAGA canvassers huddled together, we didn’t attempt to count their numbers. That would be too obvious. Our experience tracking poll watchers (where MAGA volunteers got very squeamish when we tried to document their names) made us leery in this regard. But people wanted to know what we were seeing on the ground. Who was actually out there and where were they knocking. It’s easy to conclude that we undercount, just because it is something that not all our volunteers got accustomed to recording. And some of our volunteers had an avoidance strategy. 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. One of the weirdest things, though, is the fact that the official campaign (designated as Trump Force 47 by Trump’s campaign) had so little presence outside of a couple of weeks around the Republican Convention. But Turning Point Action, claimed to be the largest MAGA voter contact effort, is now fully engaged. TPA had been claiming it would begin an aggressive field program and had gotten lots of media for that claim. It’s business model (paid canvassers) is different from our own and has raised money on such claims without being evident in the field (fraud is, apparently, the MAGA model, so). It claimed: Now, Turning Point is pouring tens of millions of dollars into an ambitious get-out-the-vote operation in three battleground states, making the 2024 election a major test of the organization’s operations — with ramifications not only for Kirk and his organization, but for Trump and the GOP at large. But canvassers in TPA gear have been seen in more than 7 states now. TPA = Turning Point Action AFP = Koch Groups (not Libre) LI = Libre Initiative CWA = Concerned Women CfG = Club for Growth TF47 = (campaign) Trump Force 47 But TPA is not alone. Far from it. “Since May, his campaign has quietly been in talks with more than three dozen conservative groups to outsource parts of its voter turnout operation.” Another group purportedly relies on “3,000, at least” paid canvassers, “financed with unlimited corporate dollars and untraceable dark money from political nonprofits that are otherwise off-limits to a federal campaign.” Here’s the thing: MAGA and conservative orgs have been competing to get the funding from large dollar donors, and, indeed, we are seeing this competition on the ground. Hope Springs volunteers have come across evidence of canvassers sponsored by Club for Growth, the various Kock-related efforts, Concerned Women for America, Freedom Forum and Heritage Action (Heritage is the “author” of Project 2025). Close encounters have been less frequent in 2024 than i remember for 2022, but i could be wrong. We never saw anyone from America PAC — which doesn’t mean they aren’t out there. TPA = Turning Point Action AFP = Koch Groups (not Libre) LI = Libre Initiative CWA = Concerned Women CfG = Club for Growth Unk = Unknown MAGA One other observation: none of our volunteers actually witnessed a MAGA canvasser at some one’s door talking to a voter. Which, again, doesn’t mean much given how infrequent it was. But we did have multiple reports of MAGA canvassers talking to each other in the streets. AFAIK, Hope Springs from Field is the only Democratic or Progressive group on the ground week in and week out, year in and year out, as weather allows. In fact, that was one of the biggest reasons why Obama alums came together to create what we envisioned to be a pop-up PAC for the Georgia Senate runoffs. There are a number of MAGA or conservative orgs who have done (and are doing) the same thing for years (even decades) before Hope Springs began. But that makes us uniquely able to judge the MAGA ground game. 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