UPDATE 12:22 pm: Jenn Brown and Jeremy Bird, who head Battleground Texas, put out a lengthy memo to say they knew the process of rebuilding the Texas Democratic Party would take time. From the memo:
“While the losses this election were tough, we’re proud of what Team Wendy, Battleground Texas, and our partners across the state accomplished this year. Together, we showed that grassroots organizing can bring new voices into the democratic process. And together, we built the largest-ever grassroots program in Texas, uniting nearly 34,000 volunteers who reached out to voters on the phones and at the doors 7.5 million times. Our investments this year – in a cutting-edge digital program, a more effective data infrastructure, and a lasting grassroots organization – will lay the foundation for Democratic victories in the future.
INITIAL POST: Greg Abbott’s campaign gurus laid out voter diagnostics used to steer his landslide victory, including knowing what TV shows likely voters watched and using 450,000 Facebook likes to follow supporters.”
Political strategist David Carney acknowledged how micro-targeting techniques and data-mining made it pretty “scary” about how much they knew about voters.
The campaign’s target was to win 55 percent of the vote. They did it by targeting 2.5 million voters that were either sure bets – based on their GOP voting history – or were considered persuadable.
They knew the TV shows they’re likely voters watched in greatest numbers – ESPN college football, College Football Scoreboard and the Discovery Channel – and gathered information on their socio-economic status, education, income, wealth and political activism. They used computer cookies and 1,000 phone calls a night to ask voters who they might support and why.
Among the key things it told them was that Abbott’s ad featuring his Hispanic mother-in-law worked extremely well, especially among Latino voters. The campaign also devoted $3 million in Spanish-language advertising.
They also could track rival Democrat Wendy Davis’ ad-buys and how they were affecting likely voters.
Davis’ controversial ad – featuring an empty wheelchair that interposed Abbott’s own $10 million accident settlement against his record of fighting lawsuits – did not do well, Abbott operatives said.
Next to Abbott’s positive mother-in-law ad, Davis’ wheelchair spot, “was our second best advertisement,” said Chris Wilson, who tracked media for the Abbott campaign.
Wilson said the ad moved some voters towards Abbott and had a negative effect on her campaign.
The Abbott campaign staff also said their tracking of newly registered voters and turnout showed that the Davis campaign and Battleground Texas did not move the needle in terms of getting new Democrats to the polls.
“There’s no reality to what they said they were doing and what happened,” Carney said. “No empirical evidence that shows they did anything.”
He said that while voter registration did go up, it followed historical trends, did not spike after Democratic voter drives and did not keep pace with the state’s growing population.
Carney said Abbott’s lopsided victory – 59 percent to her 39 percent – does not mean Democrats could not field a candidate who could be competitive in four years.
He said the Democratic problem is that they are touting policies that don’t resonate with Texas voters.
“It’s not about Democrats. It’s about message,” Carney said. “A flawed candidate and a flawed message doesn’t work.”