Objective

Campaign Inbox needed to build online donor lists from scratch for political outsiders running in the most competitive congressional races in the country.

Challenge

Mike Garcia, Anna Paulina Luna, and Wesley Hunt were named “Young Guns” by the NRCC – a recruitment program that identifies promising Republican candidates.

They were diverse, U.S. military veterans with exciting stories, but they had never run for office before. They were first caught in tough primaries and would then have to campaign against well-funded establishment candidates handpicked by Nancy Pelosi.

Approach

Campaign Inbox harnessed the compelling stories of Garcia, Luna, and Hunt to give them statewide and even national appeal to start building their email and SMS fundraising lists.

Rather than making political issues the focal point of our fundraising campaigns as is traditionally done, we chose to make their unique backgrounds the centerpiece.

Accordingly, we utilized direct-to-camera videos for our online ads and wrote especially personal emails and text messages to our donors who were heavily invested in seeing these underdog candidates make it past the finish line.

These weren’t just campaigns; in keeping with the military theme of our veteran candidates, Garcia, Hunt, and Luna were embarking on ‘missions’ to flip the first House seat in California since 1998, stop Texas from turning blue, and fire Charlie Crist from office, respectively.

Results

Conclusion

Our approach resulted in record-breaking grassroots fundraising for Luna, Garcia, and Hunt, who out-raised their Democrat opponents 3:1; 2:1, and 2:1, respectively, at the most important point during the FEC calendar. All three candidates won their primaries, outperformed the polls, and Mike Garcia even won both his special election and the general election to flip the first House seat in California in 22 years.