One Theory on GOP Fundraising Woes, How Some Candidates Are Using AI, Staying Healthy Ahead of Nov 5th, One GOP Operative Argues for a Strategic Overhaul
Inside: GOP Fundraising Tech Under the Microscope, Using AI to Decided What Office to Run for, Beating Stress Ahead of Election Day, Win or Lose One GOP Operative Wants to See Changes to Strategy
1 - Hey Siri, Do I Stand a Chance if I Run for Senate?
Some elected officials who are considering a run for higher office are turning to AI for assistance. C&E’s Editor Sean J. Miller reports.
For LoopMe, which mainly works with brand advertisers, the lessons from this exercise are applicable to, say, a member of Congress considering the leap to statewide office. “We’re actually in conversations right now with congressmen who are looking towards the future for senatorial races, and they’re strategizing with us around those capabilities – to go statewide outside of their district and to begin to ask questions to gather sentiment around what type of leader they [voters] would be looking for [in] a senator,” said the company’s head of political, Robin Porter.
She added: “What they’re really looking to do is … help inform if they should even throw their hat into the ring. … That’s a new way of looking at the use of predictive AI ahead of elections.” It’s an offering that could prevent candidates from going through the exploratory committee phase of a campaign, and possibly have other far-reaching implications for the industry.
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2 - 5 Ways To Stay Healthy And Focused Ahead of Election Day
Right now operatives are in the thick of the most stressful period of the campaign cycle. But wellness expert Frieda K. Edgette has some tips on hips on how to keep your stress levels at a manageable level (and maybe even find some calm).
Focus with a campaign mission statement.
For the remainder of the campaign, what do you aspire to achieve? What is your greatest contribution to the campaign? Keep in mind that not everything you want to do before Election Day will get done. In fact, a large portion of it won’t, so prioritize.Write out a one sentence personal campaign mission statement for now through Election Day. Keep it simple. Couple your statement with an inspirations image. Put it on your desk or make it your screen saver. When the going gets tough, read and reboot.
Performance Plus: Vision is your lighthouse in the dark. Circumstances and people may change. Your vision remains constant, guiding actions, behaviors and decisions in the right direction. The repeat, visible reminder helps create new, future forward neuro-connections.
3 - Win or Lose, One GOP Operative Thinks the Party Needs a Strategic Overhaul
GOP operative Michael Biundo of Ascent Strategic thinks that win or lose on November 5th, his party needs to a strategic overhaul. But he worries either Election Day outcome makes that unlikely.
There are many people making money, but there isn’t a cohesive strategy. If we want to win consistently, we need to do better. More specifically, we need to discuss the role of both the national and local Republican Parties as a force in elections going forward.
Our paid media is often an overlapping mess of dollars thrown up on TV competing for eyeballs instead of going after targeted groups with a connected-but-diversified messaging strategy. Simply put, there needs to be more communication to run a cohesive strategy.
The bar is rising in the competition for voters’ attention. There are so many ways voters consume media and, at the same time, they’ve grown to distrust anything politicians say and disregard campaigns that support them. This distrust makes our job harder, and without one organization being the hub for most of the spending, we need to form better-working alliances with each other and communicate on strategy, especially when our goals align.
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What's to Blame for GOP Fundraising Woes? Maybe a Lack of Competition
Democratic fundraisers have been spoiled for choice this cycle when it comes to payment processors, which could be helping the left edge the GOP in fundraising.
NGP VAN entered the processing space earlier this cycle giving dominant market player ActBlue a strong partisan competitor. This donations tag-team was able to channel enthusiasm on the left for the swap at the top of the Democratic ticket into record-level contributions. At the White House level, for instance, these platforms helped Harris-Walz and the nominees’ allied groups raise close to half-a-billion dollars more than former President Trump and his groups — in the third quarter alone.
Republicans, meanwhile, were locked to one major platform, WinRed, and they may be suffering the consequences as the rising-tides-lifts-all-boats approach espoused by supporters of the platform appears counterproductive. Donors’ information being shared too broadly in the GOP ecosystem is opening their phones up to a cascade of solicitations — often unrelated to their original contribution — sparking complaints. In fact, the Federal Trade Commission (FCC) has received nearly eight times more complaints about WinRed than ActBlue, according to CNN.
At the same time, Trump has had 300,000 fewer small-dollar ($200 or less) contributors this time around, according to a WinRed tally cited by the Financial Times, despite the campaign’s strong merch game.
Even practitioners who support WinRed and its leadership say more competition would be helpful. “I would not mind an alternative to WinRed, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love their product,” Wesley Donehue, CEO of Push Digital, recently told C&E. “I believe competition makes everything better.”
Republican fundraisers who advocate for more sustainable solicitation practices could be forgiven for saying “I told you so.”
Back in September, Cameron Armour and John Hall of Apex Strategies published a survey of 40,000 GOP donors. “The survey’s results paint a concerning picture about the confrontational relationship that Republican digital programs have with an economically stressed donor base,” the rainmakers wrote. That stress combined with a deluge of text messages had donors “increasingly skeptical” about giving.
“Only 25% of donors who responded said that they are likely to give to a political campaign in the future,” they reported.
What we’re reading
From Swing States to Drive-Throughs: On the Campaign Trail With Trump (NYT)
Don’t Say ‘Vote’: How Instagram Hides Your Political Posts (WaPo)
The WhatsApp Campaign (New York Magazine)
Behind Cnn’s Investigation on Deceptive Political Fundraising That Costs Elderly Donors Their Retirement Savings (CNN)
The Political Journey of a Top Latino Strategist for Trump (New Yorker)
