This week in 'Self Own' Republican Party of Texas edition

Ladies and gentlemen I present the 2020 Republican Party of Texas Communications Plan. Donald Trump isn't the problem, it's the whole party. From the bottom to the top, the GOP more focused on grandstanding, gimmicks, and accusations than real solutions. When they do have a plan, they're too incompetent to execute it. And every win they do get has more to do with inherited advantages than the nothingburger they offer voters today.

As the Dallas Morning News noted:

In a bizarre political blunder, a document laying out the Republican Party of Texas’s election strategy for the 2020 elections has ended up in the hands of Texas Democrats. Attacking Democratic candidates through websites and mitigating “the polarizing nature” of President Donald Trump are part of the plan.

It includes a target list of 12 statehouse districts, including six in North Texas, that Republicans are aiming to take back in next year’s elections. Negative attacks through websites, and highlighting diverse Republicans to counter a “narrative driven by Democrats” about the GOP’s lack of diversity are also part of the strategy.

Republican targets in North Texas are Dallas County Democratic Reps. Ana-Maria Ramos, Terry Meza, Rhetta Bowers, John Turner and Julie Johnson, as well as Denton County Rep. Michelle Beckley.

So what did the Republican Party of Texas do? They emailed their strategy memo straight to all of the targeted Democrats. 🤦🏻‍♂️

What did the memo say? I thought you’d never ask.

Target Races

District	Target Candidate	County	Win % 2018	GOP Win % 2016
HD 45	Zwiener (D)	Blanco, Hays	51.60%	100.00%
HD 47	Goodwin (D)	Travis	52.40%	53.58%
HD 52	Talarico (D)	Williamson	51.73%	75.51%
HD 65	Beckley (D)	Denton	51.16%	56.26%
HD 102	Ramos (D)	Dallas	52.88%	54.66%
HD 105	Meza (D)	Dallas	54.74%	50.07%
HD 113	Bowers (D)	Dallas	53.48%	55.16%
HD 114	Turner (D)	Dallas	55.65%	55.72%
HD 115	Johnson (D)	Dallas	56.79%	50.89%
HD 132	Calanni (D)	Harris	49.26%	80.23%
HD 135	Rosenthal (D)	Harris	50.81%	54.85%
HD 136	Bucy (D)	Williamson	53.37%	55.00%

Microsites:

Target Democrat Microsites

Starting after the Primary, the RPT will generate microsites for negative hits against the Democrat candidates in our twelve target races - we expect each microsite to be roughly $500. We will then begin rolling out these websites, prioritizing the races that were within 4% in the 2018 election.

A monthly Search Engine Optimization (SEO) audit will be performed for these sites in order to ensure they are on the front page of various search engines. Additionally, we will purchase any Democrat candidate domain names still available and ensure they all reroute to our microsites. For example, we will purchase ZwienerforTexas.com, ZwienerforTX.com, and so on.

We will attack these Democrat candidates with contrast hits which we will obtain from, public votes from the 86th Legislative Session, their campaign websites, and any other means to gather negative material on them as we deem it unlikely Republican candidates will share their opposition research with us - we will ask, though. We will work with various stakeholders - such as Texans for Greg Abbott - to get any more insight on issues that matter to these districts.

Master Microsite

In addition to the microsites focused on our twelve target races, we will develop a master-site which will house hits against Democrats across the state. This site will focus on Federal, State, and down ballot Democrats and be updated regularly. It is overall on Texas how Democrat values don’t match Texas values.

This site is also where we will post fact-checking against Democrat talking points and rapid response efforts when national Democrats come to Texas. This site will generally serve as a vehicle the RPT can use to attack Democrats.

Strategic GOTV Efforts:

Vote Straight Ticket

One of the biggest challenges ahead of the 2020 election cycle will be the drop-off for down ballot races as a result of the end of straight ticket voting. In an effort to stymie the drop off, we will be pushing a vote all the way down the ballot message. Our goal is to determine if there is a message that maximizes completion of ballots.

We will crowd-source messaging ideas from Republican club members and our email list. The initial ask will be an open request for suggestions on effective messaging, we will then take the best messages and determine which we, and various stakeholders, will push.  Unfortunately there is no certain way to determine whether the messaging is truly effective until after the General Election. Given this constraint, we should select something that is catchy and easy to remember - examples below.

Potential Taglines:

•      Vote Right All the Way Down!
•      Vote Right To The Bottom!
•      Vote RIGHT Down the Ballot!
•      Etc.

“Never Trumpers” GOTV

Given the polarizing nature of the President, I suspect some Republicans will refuse to turnout during the General Election because they don’t want to vote for him - though I don’t know that we will know what this universe would look like without us or a stakeholder creating a model. Regardless, I suggest we set up a contingency budget to target these folks with mailers, digital ads, and texts to encourage them to turnout for U.S. Senate, State Senate, State House, and so on.

Digital

We will use digital ads to target our audience with a message that will move them. To find a message, we need to poll.

Audience

We will work with the Data Director and Political Director to determine the audience in our target districts. During the Primary, we will test our efforts in races with no Primary challenger.

•      Polling/Data (will require budget)
  •      What drives people to vote?
•      Over 0.7 who is a high propensity voters + Trump voters
•      People who voted 14, 16, not 18

Digital

•      Contrast messaging
  •      Contrasting Texas values with liberal policies that don’t work in Texas. Look for Democrat candidates sharing liberal ideas in media, past legislative session voting records, and on campaign websites. Then, contrast with Republican values that work for Texans.
•      Volunteer recruitment
  •      We will look to create a volunteer model. Once a model is created, use it to target and recruit potential volunteers.

Digital Field Representatives

We would like to hire four (4) Digital Field Reps (DFR) who will be responsible for monitoring their regions for news and other opportunities that can be capitalized on for a statement, email acquisition, social post, and more.

They will be responsible for monitoring their regions for news and other opportunities that can be capitalized on for a statement, email acquisition, social post, and more.

The DFRs will monitor the media in each of their designated regions and share important news with campaigns in a morning media clips email. Pressing issues should be shared immediately with campaigns. On top of media clips, the DFRs will be responsible for compiling weekly Party Packets which will include talking points, generic social posts, graphics, and other helpful items for Republicans around the state – with oversight from the Comms Director.

Each of our DFRs will offer to draft content for press releases, media advisories, statements, comments, or any other need for press relations. Following the release of content, our DFRs will follow up with press. Our DFRs will NOT release the content on behalf of the campaign, but will help take care of the legwork in drafting and press follow up.

We can focus on negative content while they focus on campaigning.

Diverse Texas Republicans Project

The goal of this project is to highlight the diversity within the Republican Party through social media to counter the narrative driven by the Democrats. We will utilize short videos which will highlight why these diverse individuals are Republican.

Our goal will be to post the videos throughout the state of Texas, except in the districts of the candidates - or perhaps we can post them widely following the Primary Election. Another option would be to put out a call to all candidates following the filing deadline on December 9, 2019 to meet at a predetermined date and location, and record content in December and early January to be released slowly starting at the beginning of the year.

Consider hiring an outside firm, or determine if a firm we have on retainer can do it, to coordinate travel throughout the state to meet with candidates and get their stories and edit the videos. We will then roll them out at a cadence determined by the amount of content we are able to contain throughout the year.

Social Media Growth

Historical

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_rbhMOKXfDRJaz6MoJ3hcFOftpupy_pQMAHtLC6XB6Y/edit

Future

●      Organic Facebook Growth

• • December - 250 new followers (get to 101,000)
  • January - 400 new followers to 101,400
  • February - 500 new followers to 101,900
  • March - 500 new followers to 102,400
  • April - 300 new followers to 102,700
  • May - 300 new followers to 103,000
  • June - 350 new followers to 103,350
  • July - 350 new followers to 103,700
  • August - 400 new followers to 104,100
  • September - 500 new followers to 104,600
  • October - 500 new followers to 105,100
  • November - 500 new followers to 105,600
• Organic Twitter Growth
  • December - 600 new followers
  • January - 600 new followers
  • February - 700 new followers
  • March - 700 new followers
  • April - 400 new followers
  • May - 300 new followers
  • June - 300 new followers
  • July - 300 new followers
  • August - 400 new followers
  • September - 700 new followers
  • October - 800 new followers
  • November - 1000 new followers
• Organic Instagram Growth
  • December - 50 new followers to 4,700
  • By March Primary - 300 new followers to 5,000
  • By summer 2020 - 500 new followers to 5,500
  • By fall 2020 - 500 new followers to 6,000
• Organic YouTube Growth
  • By fall 2020 - 400 new followers to 1,000
• S.T.A.T. List Growth
  • December - 50 new members
  • January - 75 new members
  • February - 100 new members
  • March - 120 new members
  • April - 100 new members
  • May - 100 new members
  • June - 75 new members
  • July - 75 new members
  • August - 100 new members
  • September - 120 new members
  • October - 130 new members
  • November - 150 new members

○      December - 200 new members

Email Fundraising and List Growth

Month	Budget	Unique Leads	Fund. Goal
January	$5,000	1,667	$6,500
February	$6,000	2,000	$9,000
March (Primary)	$7,500	2,500	$11,250
April	$10,000	3,333	$16,000
May	$12,500	4,167	$21,250
June	$15,000	5,000	$26,250
July	$17,500	5,833	$31,500
August	$20,000	6,667	$40,000
September	$30,000	10,000	$75,000
October	$20,000	6,667	$60,000
November (Nov. 3, 2020 General)	$4,000	1,333	TBD
TOTAL	$147,500	49,167

*** Pursuant to Red Rock Strategies **

Email Subscribers

Month	# of Subscribers
January	197,922
February	194,875
March	188,292
April	187,071
May	193,231
June	210,229
July	207,664
August	210,865
September	214,676
October	223,088
November	282,408

**Data from across all lists

Press Relations

• Set aside 1 hour/ week to call to get stories placed
• Rapid response emails
• Press release frequency
• At least one op-ed per month
• Increase pitching of stories

For the record, yes this is a weak communications "plan." But the free media articles for us are golden.

And you’ve gotta laugh at the RPT’s shortsighted elimination of straight-ticket voting!

The plan also identifies the Republican-led elimination of straight ticket voting as “one of the biggest challenges ahead of the 2020 cycle.” To address that, the plan details an effort to convince Republican voters to vote for GOP candidates all the way down the ballot manually through a tagline. Some of the potential taglines include: “Vote Right All the Way Down!” “Vote Right To The Bottom!” and “Vote RIGHT Down the Ballot!”

Because even the GOP leadership knows Trump is an existential threat:

I just think we've got to get through 2020, guarantee if we try and hold this majority—which, with all due respect to Trump, who I love, by the way—he's killing us in urban-suburban districts. I mean, Angie Chen Button by polling, she's even, he's down 15 points. Yeah, I mean like—anyway.

I think Trump is going to win Texas, he's going to win it back to normal levels. But the people he pulls out are going to be people who really don't know or care what a state representative is. And so they're going to go Trump and then they're going to go, okay, the U.S. senator, I guess that might be important. I've seen this person on TV. Okay. And now you're talking about judges and all this other crap that they don't understand what they are and why they -- you know, am I supposed to vote for these? I don't know what these people do. All this, railroad commission. I don't care about choo-choo trains. So it's going to be really easy for that person just coming out for Trump to go, I'm done. That's my fear.