I am a bit skeptic about searching a date for a string and also because of the fact that search interprets = as a string comparison operator.
So, here is what I would check :
The date field's datatype and format
The data type of the field status
It might also be a good idea to quote all your literal values to force various commands to interpret them as strings and not fields.
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I dont think we need to use a where in your case as the status field seems to be available, The normal use of where is when you want to compare a value to a eval.
So, if you were calculating the status , I would use your first search and I would use your second search if the status field is already available in teh event
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