Campaigning For Congress-- In The Midst Of The Pandemic

Asshole without a mask campaigns among men all wearing masks

Right before the shutdown, an unsymptomatic campaign volunteer gave everyone on a congressional campaign COVID-19-- as well as the candidate's entire family. No one died. But it sure screwed up the campaign. Yesterday, the Attorney General of Michigan, Dana Nessel, said Señor Trumpanzee is no longer welcome in the state after he adamantly refused to wear a mask in public as part of a campaign stunt. "He is a petulant child who refuses to follow the rules. This is not a joke." Michigan has been a hard-hit state that is working very diligently to flatten the curve by encouraging-- not discouraging-- everyone to wear a mask. Michigan's 53,510 caseload increased by 501 cases while Trump was in the state yesterday and 69 more people died, bringing their total deaths to 5,129. (Yesterday there were 5,358 cases per million people, worse than every European country other than Spain.)

A political consultant friend of the blog, Eric Hogensen, wrote up some suggestions for campaigning during the pandemic for his clients and shared it with us. "The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting changes to our lives," he wrote earlier this week, "have altered politics. In addition to moving election dates, restrictions on the usual messaging tactics have changed campaigns, possibly for the rest of the year."

Digital

With canvassing is limited or unavailable, social media will become more important and valuable this year. Online videos, both planned and live, can be used by the candidate to get their message out. A candidate can also host question-and-answer sessions that connect a candidate to a voter. Organizing a virtual night based on any one of the main issues taking place in the district you are running in, is a great way to reach voters. Also, utilizing more apps with platforms such as Nextdoor to reach voters in your district directly will greatly benefit your campaign.

Branding

The typical political messages may seem less appropriate during these challenging times, so messages should be inspiring and hopeful. It’s important to remember not to change your brand as a candidate during these times. You can pivot with creative messaging and expanding your brand but don’t change who you are.

Field

Instead of canvassing door-to-door, phone banking will become more important. Use community mapping by starting with who you know and identifying who is influential (such as local leaders). Build a list of these individuals and then ask them to introduce you to their connections. Predictive dialer services should also be utilized even more during this cycle. Also, the targeting for different constituencies through phone calls should be looked at with a closer lens to evaluate your support as you begin your outreach. With volunteers making calls from home, it can actually be easier for calls to get made. Set up weekly goals and a leaderboard so volunteers can reach enough voters.

Although these are challenging times, candidates should recognize that there are still alternative ways to reach voters, and that it is important to spread the message of hope and unity during this crisis.

I asked some of the Blue America-endorsed candidates how they're coping with keeping a campaign moving forward during the pandemic. Indiana progressive Jim Harper was the first to respond: "Our campaign acted early to make sure that we were doing no harm. I haven't shaken a hand for months, and we quickly cancelled our in-person events even before stay-at-home orders were issued. We have switched our focus to phone calls and digital outreach, but also work to make sure that we as a campaign are giving back during a difficult time. Every week, we engage in multiple service activities. This is a good opportunity to remain connected with our community, while lending a helping hand."

If Jennifer Christie wins, she will have flipped an open red seat in the suburbs north of Indianapolis. There's a crowded field of Republican-lite Democrats and Jennifer is the only one running on a straight-up progressive platform. This morning she told us that "We started knocking doors right after the New Year. We were out several times per week long before any other campaigns had started canvassing. We knocked in thr sleet and snow. Then the pandemic hit. We stopped knocking with an abrupt halt to keep our team and constituents safe. We immediately switched over to phone-banking, text-banking, and zoom-events. We are on the phone daily and it’s going really well. Because people are home more, we talk to a lot of people. And we get overwhelmingly yes commitments with enthusiasm for our truly progressive campaign and the chance to send a scientist and a mom to Congress."

The Newark, Elizabeth, Bayonne, Hoboken, Weehawken, Jersey City district that Hector Oseguera is running in is very different from IN-05. For one thing, the district is as blue as it gets and the electorate is 65% Hispanic. The winner of the primary is the next member of Congress. Hector is campaigning hard against an entrenched, machine-backed incumbent, Albio Sires. Earlier today, Hector told us that "Incumbents normally hold a tremendous advantage over their challengers, having much better access to funding and to influential groups within their districts. This new reality has quickly leveled off this traditional power disparity, as both elected officials and their challengers adapt to life in lockdown. This campaign specifically, has shifted to online advertisements on platforms like Facebook, which can have as much impact and reach as traditional television and radio ads at a fraction of the cost. Letter writing campaigns offer remote outreach opportunities that give voters a personal, one-on-one experience, while maintaining social distancing. Even our activism need not grind to a halt. I've participated in a number of COVID-safe rallies at ICE detention centers, where activists drive around prisons, honking profusely, to let the inmates and staff know that we are aware of the unsafe conditions inside. All this chaos can provide creative, tech-savvy campaigns a much needed advantage on a traditionally skewed playing field. How campaigns adapt to this new world will vary depending on the contours of their districts; but the old Latin proverb, Fortis Fortuna Adiuvat, hold true today... fortune favors the bold!"

"In the immediate aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic," said Rochester, NY candidate Robin Wilt, "our campaign first off transitioned to mutual aid efforts. We saw the communities that were most engaged in our campaign suffering, so we started making deliveries for a local food pantry, which turned out to be one of the few food pantries in the county that has continued to operate during the crisis. We also transitioned our phonebanks to include senior check-ins. In addition to mutual aid efforts, we knew that our original strategy would depend a lot on direct voter contact, so since we didn’t have that in our toolbox anymore, we transitioned our outreach to social media, and we began doing weekly COVID-19 community check-ins. These are updates where we highlight the issues facing our frontline and most vulnerable community members to raise awareness and build action around moving forward through this pandemic together, with no one left behind. We have now done these public forums and outreach to the arts and self care communities, for those that are housing insecure, the immigrant, migrant, and refugee community, the incarcerated community, the climate justice community, the mutual aid community, educators, voting rights advocacy, etc. Yesterday, we hosted a call with Medicare for All advocates. We promote them via Zoom on Facebook Live, and it’s a means to engage voters around the priorities that matter most to the electorate."

"So, basically," she concluded, "our team has shifted to a strong digital outreach effort through social media channels. The results have been terrific, reaching an average of 60,000 voters each week. We’ve also never strayed from our activist roots. What we’re finding during the pandemic is that raising awareness and taking action to support our frontline communities is the best mechanism to spread our message.

Mckayla Wilkes is taking on Pelosi's #2 (and K Street's #1)-- Steny Hoyer. "Prior to COVID-19," she told us today, "we were knocking on over 10,000 doors a weekend so when we had to suspend canvassing we were obviously a bit concerned as to how we would continue to get the word out about our campaign. But thankfully, we were able to transition fast due to our committed volunteers. Since we shut down canvassing, we’ve made hundreds of thousands of calls, seen an increase in volunteers by 1000%, raised over $300k and see no signs of slowing down. Just yesterday, we launched our first TV ad campaign throughout the district!"

Video Was Adopted Fast By Bands And Labels With Nothing To Lose

What do Randy Bryce, Amy McGrath, MJ Hegar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez all have in common? Well, if you hit the links, you'll probably know what I'm talking about. None of those are expensive 30 second TV spots. No one ever heard of any of the candidates before those videos launched them onto the public consciousness. All have been seen by millions of people-- and all have brought in huge numbers of small, grassroots contributions.

Neither Paul Ryan nor Lyin' Bryan Steil, Randy's two GOP opponents, would ever or could ever do that kind of a video. Nor would Jim Gray-- much better known and very rich and favored opponent of McGrath-- or Andy Barr, the Republican she's duking it out with now. Ditto for John Carter in Texas and for Joe Crowley in Queens. Joe Crowley (D-NY), John Carter (R-TX), Andy Barr (R-KY), Jim Gray (D-KY), Paul Ryan (R-WI)/Lyin' Bryan Steil (R-WI) are all old school, very, very old school. They spend small fortunes for some hired guns to create basically meaningless, unmemorable 30 second TV spots for them that clutter up the airwaves and piss people off.

I slip so often on the phone and refer to the Blue America candidates as "artists." That's because I'm from the music business and I deal with the candidates the same way I dealt with the artists of my label. Randy is like Neil Young, Alexandria is like Joni Mitchell, Ammar is like Billie Joe Armstrong, Kara is like Chaka Khan, Katie is like Madonna, Jared is like Ice-T... they all remind me of someone I had to deal with as a record company executive. In my earliest days in the music biz I had an indie label in San Francisco, 415 Records. My partner Chris and I rented some space in a dilapidated old fire house in the pre-gentrified Mission District and ran our label out of that. Who would ever think we could have a #1 record? And that's why I have that Buggles song up top. Let me explain.

Before MTV came along-- and there was no viable internet or social media at the time-- the only way to promote a song nationally was on radio. And the only way to get on radio was to pay immense bribes. It cost thousands of dollars to bring a song into the national top ten-- out of the question for a small company like 415 Records. We worked college radio and new wave specialty shows and sometimes we could break through on one or two big stations like WBCN in Boston or KROQ in L.A. But Top 40 or slickly formatted AOR? Not a chance. So along came MTV. The big record companies and big artists looked at it like some kind of alien life form-- interesting... but what kind of interplanetary disease was it carrying? Would it turn vicious and eat you? The big artists and labels-- like Joe Crowley and Jim Gray and Paul Ryan-- didn't make videos. We saw an opportunity and we quickly filled the void. We had massive hits (for us) with Romeo Void, the Red Rockers (our first #1), Translator and Wire Train (below).

The same folks who put together the smash Randy Bryce hit, just did one for California insurgent Kevin de León, the progressive candidate for the U.S. Senate seat held by Dianne Feinstein who's been in it since California first became a state in 1850. The video is spectacular-- emotive, compelling, incredibly powerful.-- easily one of the best this year.



You think Dianne Feinstein could or would ever do a video like that? You want to talk about "old school?" If enough California voters see it, Kevin's going to win-- even though Feinstein put $5,006,050 of her own loot into her campaign and raised another $10,000,000... compared to Kevin's $1,310,851. (Please contribute to Kevin's campaign here so he can get that out more widely.)

This week our old friend Eric Hogensen has some video tips for struggling political campaigns, 3 Tips for Using Affordable Videos for Your Campaign:

"Only a few years ago," he wrote, "videos were a medium that only large, TV-focused campaigns could afford. That's all changed. Videos are incredibly captivating, and thanks to several new services, producing them and getting views is easier than ever before. Here are our 3 tips for using inexpensive videos for your campaign.

1. Pick a service for creating simple videos.

There are many options to choose from. 30Second Explainer Videos creates short, animated videos for businesses, but the Whiteboard style also works great for candidate campaigns. There are also several companies (Rocketium, Animoto / Animaker, Showbox) that allow you to create your own videos in-house, even if you don't have any experience with editing. These cater well to social media feeds.

2. Plug your videos into social media.

Whether you are doing expensive, professionally-produced videos meant for television, or affordable explainer videos like the ones described above, you need to be advertising them on social media, particularly YouTube and Facebook. Services like HootSuite can help. Boosting the ads to your target audience is easy and, for local races, is one of the best ways to raise your name ID.

3. This can't wait until the last minute.

Developing your social video plan early will allow you to tell your story to voters over the course of several weeks. Plus you'll want to get registered as a political advertiser with Facebook right away. The process takes several weeks, so you'll want to start it at least a month before Election Day!

More Campaign Advice From Eric Hogensen At HSG Campaigns: How Did Andrew Gillum Win?

Andrew picked Chris King as his running mate

Eric starts with the commonly held mainstream perception that Gillum's gubernatorial primary campaign was headed straight towards failure when... out of the blue-- he won.

• Andrew Gillum- 517,417 (34.3%)
• Gwen Graham- 472,735 (31.3%)
• Philip Levine- 306,450 (20.3%)
• Jeff Greene- 151,935 (10.1%)
• Christopher King- 37,464 (2.5%)

For as long as I've known Andrew-- until relatively recently-- he's been the head of People for the American Way's Young Elected Official. He's not a novice when it comes to winning elections. Not even close. "Florida’s gubernatorial primary," wrote Hogensen, "brought perhaps the biggest upset of the year, with Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum pulling off a surprise win that almost nobody saw coming. With polls predicting a 3rd place finish, how did Gillum manage to pull off victory?" Good question, for sure... though people watching closely saw the surge as it was happening and, those reading DWT also saw the rapidly rising internal polling numbers in the last 2 weeks of the campaign. Here's how Hogensen explains how Andrew won, all of which is exactly what happened:

1. He Created Clear Contrast:

Gillum's story wasn't just inspiring, it set him apart. He's the son of a bus driver and a construction worker, the first in his family to attend college, and (would be) the state's first African American governor. Compare that to his main opponents, Gwen Graham, Philip Levine, or Jeff Greene, who all came from privileged backgrounds. And compared to second-place finisher, the super-centrist Graham, Gillum's strong progressive credentials gave Democratic primary voters a clear ideological choice

2. He Didn't Fear the Label:

Earning endorsements from the likes of Bernie Sanders sets you up to be labeled a "socialist" by Republicans, but Gillum feared not. Progressives have long argued that staying in the middle doesn't win general elections. You can't win if you don't inspire the base. Enough Democrats felt comfortable with that argument to nominate him. Both conservatives and progressives will have ample reason to vote now.

3. He Brought in New Voices:

From what we can tell so far, the reason Gillum surprised pollsters is because he built a coalition of under-sampled voters-- namely people of color and Millennials. Re-creating the Obama coalition, he boosted turnout and has obvious energy going into November.

The latest Quinnipiac poll (likely voters) shows Andrew leading his far right Trumpist opponent Ron DeSantis 50% to 47%. Andrew has 93% of Democrats and DeSantis has 92% of Republicans. Exactly normal. So where is Andrew's strength coming from? Independents are backing him 55-42%. Also women... by 55-42% Andrew also leads there, considerably greater than DeSantis' 52-45% lead among men. And the black vote favors Andrew 93-2%. If you'd like to help make sure Andrew can go all the way in November, please consider contributing to his campaign by click on the 2018 Blue America gubernatorial thermometer on the right.