1st Endorsed Candidates Win vs. Big Money
When we saw John Wahl fall five points behind in the final week after being outspent by hundreds of thousands of dollars by large PACs, with just one week remaining before Election Day, we decided it was time for Freedom and Family Action to launch its first statewide political effort. We produced the first digital ads since the formation of FFA pictured above, and if he was really behind by 5 points five days before the election (see images above) then that was a 19-point turnaround for a 57% to 43% win.
The only other endorsement made by FFA was for Frances Holk-Jones, facing an even bigger opponent as a $200 million per year political consulting company was paid to set up a group called Alabama Values PAC to attack her and other candidates, dropping her 24 points from 66% in her last primary to 42%. While the personnel of Freedom and Family had knocked on hundreds of thousands of doors – for the first time we thought it was time to actually design a response to point out her opponent should not be throwing stones from a glass house. The counter was effective and the trend of the race flipped and Holk-Jones shot back up to 52.3% with 99% of the votes counted.
We prefer positive campaigns too, but …
… sometimes circumstances require a response.
Local candidates who have spent a lifetime serving their communities generally want to stay positive and are often unprepared for the sustained attacks that can come from a national political consulting operation of that size. Historically, once an incumbent falls that far behind and is forced into a runoff, the odds of recovery are slim.
Once FFA decided to endorse Wahl, in addition to producing a limited amount of literature, the main focus was a highly targeted digital campaign through PJ Wenzel, a friend and ally for decades, who runs Ring Digital. We also teamed up with PJ in Lloyd Peeples’ stunning 17-point victory in the district that includes our Vestavia Hills, Alabama office, where Peeples defeated 36-year incumbent Jim Carns.
The digital ad was played thousands of times during the final days of the campaign. The goal was simple: remind faith-based voters that John Wahl had been fighting for their values years before asking for their vote. The ad highlighted his efforts to protect children and families by opposing attempts to bring sexually explicit and politically charged LGBT advocacy materials into libraries and other public institutions.
https://creativepreview.flashtalking.net/p/UHHRbHjFJRtVdh
While most statewide organizations strongly supported Allen to give him hundreds of thousands of dollars more being spent to support, we were joined by another faith-based group the Christian Coalition which also put out a nice endorsement piece for Wahl.
Both groups thought it was a clear choice for faith-based voters since Wahl has been one of Alabama’s most visible advocates for parental rights and age-appropriate standards in public institutions. He repeatedly spoke out against materials that many parents believed were inappropriate for children and supported efforts to ensure that libraries remained focused on education rather than activism.
While not involved in two other races, we were ecstatic to see Katherine Robertson win Attorney General and my long-time friend Barry Moore win US Senate nominations. As I mentioned in an earlier email I believed a Moore election might give Alabama the greatest combo of US Senators in the country along with Senator Katie Britt, and the teams first campaign back in Alabama, while not a FFA effort, was for Robertson’s close friend Cindy Myrex show we share her enthusiasm for that win. Back to our first two endorsed candidates as an organization …
Starting with two political wins followed on Freedom and Family Action starting with a legislative win in passing a bill to stop ActBlue from continuing to disperse millions in unverified donations to liberal causes. In fact, at a joint event with our two champions at the federal level – Bryan Steil and Jim Jordan, Steil pointed out that during his investigation an ActBlue official estimated about $38 million in donations were from illegal foreign sources.
The decision to make these our first two independent campaigns (meaning we could not coordinate what we were sending out with the candidates or their campaigns) followed the same “doors early, digital late” strategy I used for the first time 12 years ago when I left the Dave Brat campaign because I did not believe the campaign itself would approve the type of contrast advertising needed to win. Instead, I helped fund We Deserve Better PAC, which produced this ad:
Laura Ingraham called it the best political ad of 2014, and it helped produce the only successful primary challenge ever against a sitting Congressional Majority Leader.
While everyone would prefer to have the kind of financial resources available to the groups backing Alabama Values PAC, many people were surprised to learn that I spent just $2,700 to produce the Dave Brat ad and approximately $3,500 on one of the first truly digital campaigns. The effort created the impression that Dave Brat was dominating network television and that the campaign had suddenly caught fire, even while he was being outspent $5 million to $200,000.
The lesson from both campaigns is that smart targeting and a compelling message can sometimes overcome enormous financial disadvantages. Voters are often less interested in who spent the most money than in who has been fighting for their concerns long before election season arrives.
We thank everyone on our team who helped get this information out including our team leaders and our youngest canvassers. Like with Brat 12 years ago, it was nice to be allowed to come to the Wahl victory party as soon as the last vote had been cast to finally show the team and candidate what we had been putting out on their behalf.
Here are our team leaders who were in North and providing our ground game to advocate for Wahl and complement the digital ads shown at the top, while our South team was distributing thousands of pieces of literature urging defeat of Joe Freeman in the closing couple of days of that campaign.
