How Virginia last year was different from FL 13 and what FL Dems should have learned.

[RBInMaine]

Last edited Thu Mar 13, 2014, 10:57 PM - Edit history (1)

Granted, last year in VA it was a statewide race and not just a one-county race, but it is still a somewhat good comparison. VA is purple, and the race was going to be close, just like FL 13. What did the VA Dems do differently?

IN VA LAST YEAR, THEY EXPANDED THE USUAL MAP. The VA Dems knew they couldn't win unless they found ways to expand the map beyond the usual models. Terry McAuliffe, like Alex Sink, was not the most exciting candidate and ran mainly as a centrist. BUT, HERE was the DIFFERENCE. On certain issues, such as WOMEN'S RIGHTS, GAY RIGHTS, and MEDICAID EXPANSION he was STRONG and FORCEFUL.

He PICKED THE FIGHT and SET THE AGENDA on these key issues which helped to motivate the base, and the VA Dems strongly went after the "Obama Coalition" voters including women and minorities. It wasn't presidential year numbers by any means, but they made enough inroads into those voters, who will often sit out non-presidential cycles, to give them the edge. There is no question about it.

The FL Dems should have LEARNED from that race. In off cycle elections, you have to get your base to the polls. Sink is a nice person, but she was kind of lackluster and not a great debater. She doesn't fire people up. She ran as a centrist and didn't stake out some key base issues and go FORCEFUL and LOUD on those so she didn't fire up the base enough. And it seems they didn't really micro-target key groups such as young women and minorities. I am not leaving the rank and file blameless by any means. They knew an election was going on and too many remained apathetic, and there is NO excuse for that. HOWEVER, there is also no excuse for a state party and candidate running a weak campaign.

Please folks, this is NOT a bellweather for the whole country. It is an R leaning district in off cycle races, and the Dems nearly won it. The R won because more of his friendly voters came out on election day to give him less than a two percent win with just 37% of the electorate turning out in total. It was CLOSE. But it should have been the other way around with the right campaign and Sink winning by two percent, and that COULD have happened if they had done what VA had done. The FL Dems MUST learn from this if they are going to get rid of Scott in November.

In Maine this year, we are going to take down our 2010 TeaBag governor (Paul LePage or Paul LeRAGE as we like to call him) by expanding the map with such groups as single women, young people, ALL Dems, progressive leaning Indies, etc. We are going to motivate them by both brutally attacking our rotten TeaBag incumbent gov., and also by going after him HARD on MEDICAID EXPANSION, MAKING COLLEGE MORE AFFORDABLE, WOMEN'S RIGHTS, WORKER'S RIGHTS, RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE, etc. Our teabagger guv and the R's are killing Medicaid Expansion for the second time right now even with a moderate R compromise bill to do it. We are just shy of the 2/3 majority to override his veto. No problem. We'll get him at the polls.

[longship]

1. A great post, RB.

Happy to R&

[RBInMaine]

2. Thanks

[RBInMaine]

3. I hope others like it too.

Last edited Thu Mar 13, 2014, 10:36 PM - Edit history (1)

[underpants]

4. You are also going to hear a lot about the RNC tech bump

http://m.washingtonexaminer.com/five-new-digital-tools-the-gop-used-in-the-fla.-special-to-boost-their-campaign/article/2545576


• Canvassing app: The RNC has developed multiple smartphone and tablet apps for field staff to use to input data about prospective voters. The data is uploaded to the RNC’s main database in real time and is immediately available to the committee, the campaign and approved vendors, allowing them to make quick decisions on how to apply resources and whether to make strategic adjustments.

• Application programming interface: This is the fancy term the RNC is using to describe how it shares voter data with campaigns and approved vendors — and vice versa. Previously, a campaign, its consultants and the committee might be working off three sets of data. Now each entity can share and synthesize its data through the interface, increasing its accuracy and ensuring that the RNC, the candidate’s campaign team and outside strategists are making decisions based on the same voter information.

• The email list: For the first time, the RNC was able to synthesize its list of email contacts with its voter file. It sounds simple, but an inability to do this previously had significantly reduced the number of prospective voters the committee was able to contact.

• Voter scoring: The more a party knows about prospective voters, the more efficient and effective its voter targeting. The RNC used to rank voters on a simple one-to-five scale, one being the least likely to vote for the Republican candidate, five being the most likely. The committee now ranks prospective voters on a complex scale of one to 100, with each data point representing a piece of information about a voter that helps determine how best to talk to him or her and motivate him or her to vote.

• Dashboard: For the first time, all of the data gathered by the RNC minute to minute was available to view on-demand via computer. Neither the campaign, the National Republican Congressional Committee nor any other approved entity had to request reports from the RNC or worry that the information might be outdated by the time they got them.

[RBInMaine]

5. They were behind the times for a long time. This didn't help them much. They too had low turnout

and won by less than two percent. Tech can only help an R party so much when they have such shrinking demographics. In the end, the R's simply got their friendly voters to the polls in slightly better numbers than did the D's and won with their registration advantage on election day. The D's made the fatal error of relying on a highly reliable D base and more Indies rather than reaching deeper and expanding their map.


The Dems needed to re-activate the Obama Coalition as VA did, and they needed a more vigorous candidate who would press a few key base issues much more forcefully. Instead they went with too centrist an approach with not enough swing indies to make up the R registration advantage. Special elections are base elections, and they needed to get more young people, single women, African Americans, and Hispanic Americans to the polls. Their strategy was
flawed. Had they done this, they would have won. They needed to message forcefully to blocks of the less reliable off-cycle
D and D-leaning voters.

If D's can learn from this, once and for all, then they'll do fine in the midterms.