Adapting To A Wild Election Cycle – Jessica Anderson

Jessica Anderson:

Republicans are losing because we're losing the early vote and that has to change.

Eric Wilson:

Welcome to the Campaign Trend Podcast where you are joining in on a conversation with the entrepreneurs, operatives, and experts who make professional politics happen. I'm your host, Eric Wilson. Our guest today is Jessica Anderson, president of the Sentinel Action Fund, the only conservative super PAC with a year round ground gain committed to turning out absentee early vote and day of voters. She was previously the Executive Director of Heritage Action for America. In this episode, we discussed how Sentinel has adapted to the wildly unpredictable 2024 election, the strategy behind boosting early voting and the role of personal voter contact. Jessica, you've been working on Sentinel Action Funds 2024 election strategy for almost two years, but this election season has been unlike anything we've ever seen. How do you adapt to the changing circumstances with such a carefully thought out plan?

Jessica Anderson:

Well, Eric, it's been a real challenge this year because you make all of these plans in January and then boom, Joe Biden's off the top of the ticket or you have a change up of how you thought a Senate primary was going to go. I think the key to politics is knowing what you're going to do, and part of that is anticipating that something is going to change. I always tell my team that we need to be on war footing. We don't know what's going to change something will. We shouldn't be shocked. We just need to adapt and pull the resources together to make it work. And that really has been this year because there's so many things that look different today than they did in January of 2024, let alone of July, 2023 when we started the work in preparation for this coming

Eric Wilson:

November. I'm reminded when you said war footing, general Eisenhower's advice that planning is indispensable, but plans are worthless. And so aside from who the Democrats top of ticket candidate is from your assessment, what are some of the most impactful changes or surprises we've seen?

Jessica Anderson:

Well, one operational change that's been actually really good is how much President Trump and our Senate candidates have embraced absentee and early vote.

This time last year, we were talking to anyone that would listen to us about the urgent need for the party and the conservative movement writ large to recognize that big changes had been made on the election integrity front since 2020 and certainly since 2022, state legislatures all across the country have passed bills that provided more security around drop boxes and chain of custody for mail-in ballots and wet signatures and map signatures. And so cleaning up the voter rolls, there's just so much good election integrity work that's happened and that should give us confidence in voting by mail. It should give us confidence in wanting to vote early. And so the change that's happened is as we talked about the election law improvements that have been made at the state level coupled with the research and the analysis that Republicans are losing because we're losing the early vote and that has to change.

It must change this coming November when those two things set in people's minds, specifically President Trump and his team who were I think really aggressive in trying to make this change with his own rhetoric, with the Senate candidates, with the house candidates rhetoric. As soon as that happened, Eric, it was like bam, we could then just run on educating people how to vote early. We weren't trying to then convince them that it's okay to do it because you had President Trump on the stump talking about vote so big, it's too big to rig and doing those videos with the RNC of voting early or voting by mail. And so that change up I think was one of the ones that was for the benefit of the whole party and was really well received this year. So I'd put that in the positive column of changes,

The negative column of changes, those are kind of a whole different story. The biggest one was now multiple assassination attempts on President Trump. I mean, this happened and I think it rocked voters to our core. Even if you didn't even like President Trump, you saw the vi hatred that some on the left have for him, and that makes you rethink things. And as our campaign has gone after low propensity voters, so those voters that aren't as plugged in, they're not on Twitter X, they're not on truth social, they don't watch Fox News or CNN, they may catch the news under the corner of their eye in an airport. They knew about the shooting, they knew. So now all of a sudden you have this terrible current event that has happened and it's transcend politics and it's reached voters on the human level, on the safety and security level and that sort of change.

We really felt it. We felt it immediately. Our door knockers were in Pennsylvania the day of the shooting, and so we were adapting that day. What security protocols do we need? We have people at the door talking to voters about Trump and McCormick Miles from where the shooting was. And so we felt it in a very real way with voters. And so that was a big change. Obviously then Biden dropping from the top of the ticket that change was felt. There's some legal things that we can get into. I think your viewers probably would appreciate it. Some FEC moves that have happened over the summer that were big legal changes about how we coordinate and work with super PAC to super PAC and then superpacs back to campaigns. And so it's been a busy season, a lot of ups and downs this cycle, and I think we're going to look back and be like, wow, this was a historical election.

Eric Wilson:

Yeah, I didn't even think about the sort of security precautions and what that might look like and the uncertainty on the ground there in Pennsylvania and credit to Sentinel and your team at making sure that our side shifted the conversation about vote by mail, early voting to really embracing this as an important tactic that we need to get on board with. I mean, we did some post-election research through the Center for Campaign Innovation in Virginia and saw that we have really shifted the tide on our side for voters embracing vote by mail and seeing it as a way to complete their civic duty in a convenient way that skips the line. Sendel is obviously really focused on those Senate races this cycle, and we've heard from Jason Teman in a previous episode about that this cycle's map is so favorable to Republicans. I'm curious to see how you're seeing the effects of the presidential raise play out in some of those key Senate contests. Interestingly enough, a lot of them map onto key presidential battleground states. There are a couple like Montana and West Virginia that aren't in the mix but important. Nevertheless, how do you play into that when you've got something so big at the top of the ticket?

Jessica Anderson:

Yeah, that's just a great question and I think we could spend a whole hour talking about that in particular in the different moments of the cycle. I'll say a couple things just right off the top one, the Senate map is a good map for Republicans because it's an aggressive map. We have spent the last two cycles chasing one or two seats. This map is really the opportunity for Republicans to go deeper and get to 52, maybe 53 Senate seats for A GOP majority. That's huge. And the reason that exists is because we have historically red and in some places battleground, but definitely red leaning states that are represented by their last statewide Democrat. Sherrod Brown in Ohio is the last statewide elected Democrat in

Eric Wilson:

State. Wow, I didn't realize that.

Jessica Anderson:

Yes, and so the state has changed. Sherrod Brown has not. The state has changed in Pennsylvania. Bob Casey has not. So these are opportunities where we won't have an aggressive chance like this again in the map until you look at 2030. So if Republicans want to go big and get to 53, which is I'm one of those that wants to get to at least 53

Eric Wilson:

Bay, the roof is pointing towards the outfield wall there.

Jessica Anderson:

That's right. Let's go because the next two cycles we're going to be in defense mode. We're going to be in a defensive posture of protecting our seats as opposed to advancing the ball. That's really why we zoomed in on a strategy for the Senate because we knew that it was really the insurance policy. If President Trump wins and I think he will win, then the Senate is his partner to enacting trade deals. If we have a potential Supreme Court fight blocking anything that might come from a divided house, the Senate becomes a key cudgel in Washington politics. And on the flip side, if Harris is successful, which I don't think she will be, but if she is, then the Senate is going to be her accountability partner and has to stop the most extreme parts of her agenda. And that's going to have to include cabinet nominations, spending deals, infrastructure deals, foreign policy, all of that.

So the Senate is where I think a lot of the action is going to come down to. So I think just in general, that atmosphere, how that translates on the ground with our team that's going door to door, that's making phone calls, sending text messages involved in our communities, we are experienced the magnitude of the cycle on a day-to-day basis. Now, what I would say to how the Senate candidates are tracking with the president, every state is a little different. So you look at a state, and you mentioned this, but you look at a state like Montana, West Virginia, neither of those states are battleground in the sense of the Senate candidate having to duke it out. Like in a state like Pennsylvania,

Eric Wilson:

Montana

Jessica Anderson:

Is a state that Trump won comfortably by over 20 points last time he's on track to do that. Again, the fact that John Tester is still a city Democratic senator is something that's going to change very quickly because he can't win with the way Montana's voters are now, especially post covid, right? You had so many people moved into the state of Montana because it was free and you could be outside of the open doors and you could live your life, and people sought that when they exited the blue states or a more stringent state into Montana. So I think you're going to see for Tim Sheehy who is pulling six some points, some polls have him up nine points in the state, he's tracking very close to where President Trump is, and I think we feel the most confident that Montana flips. So if you think of West Virginia, that flips first. That gets us to even Montana gets us to 51.

Eric Wilson:

Now

Jessica Anderson:

You look at Ohio, so as I mentioned, Sherrod Brown is as liberal as they come. He's managed to trick a lot of Ohioan into him being a moderate Democrat. That is not the case. His voting record is lockstep with Biden. And so we've been able to show that to voters. I think they see through the facade, and you're starting to see Bernie Marino's numbers tick up. At the beginning of the summer, there was a little bit of a gap between where President Trump was at six, seven percentage points. Bernie was behind four or five at that point. Now he's closer to the margin of error, whereas Trump is up to eight. So I think as Trump does better in a place like Ohio, might even ellipse 10, that's going to pull Bernie over that threshold and get him on the other side of the margin of error of plus one, plus two, his name ID is increasing every single day. JD Vance as the junior senator from Ohio getting tapped as vice president and Bernie standing shoulder to shoulder on the RNC floor and every single picture about JD Vance, Bernie didn't. Right? A

Eric Wilson:

Lot of home state enthusiasm there.

Jessica Anderson:

Exactly. It just feels good to be from Ohio right now and to be a conservative Republican. And so those are odes, but they begin to play out when we look at the polling. But then also when we look at the feedback on the ground, what we're seeing in the verbatims from our door knocks right now is actually this sentence. We just had a bunch of these sentences come back this week. If Bernie Moreno is Trump's guy, he's my guy too. And so the connection of Trump has endorsed Bernie Moreno for Senate, brings him home, and that's what we like to see. That's what I'm looking to see the next six weeks for Ohio to come home.

Eric Wilson:

So does that messaging of Trump has endorsed this candidate, does that transfer over into a really effective message for you in convincing voters to vote early, whether that's by mail or in person? I'm just curious, what's your most effective message to convince people to do that?

Jessica Anderson:

The Trump effect definitely helps, and we've been phrasing it like do your civic duty to support President Trump and vote for his handpicked Senate candidate, Tim Sheehy, Bernie Marino, Dave McCormick, Sam Brown, and you list them like that. That really works. And then we couple that with some messaging on the importance and the safety and security around early vote and mail-in balance. So there's really three messages that we found kind of work the most, and we use a variety of these at the doorstep daily. One is the convenience. So it's super convenient to vote early or to vote by mail. You have a busy life you may not have time to take away on election day. Don't worry. You have 20 days in the early vote period or upwards of 60 days if it's a state like of Pennsylvania. So there's plenty of time. It's super convenient.

You can skip the line of election day and vote at your convenience early or by, so that's kind of the first message we use. The second is actually the military. So we talk about how the military has used mail-in ballots that are safe and secure for decades, and if it's secure enough for our guys overseas to vote by mail, it's secure enough for me. It's secure enough for you. And so we talk about the military using the mail-in ballot. And then the third is really gets to the heart of your question about how important it is for Trump to really be the leader in this space because when he said too big to rig vote early, so it's too big to rig that, that little light bulb for voters. We had message tested that previously and the sentence we came up with was vote early to overcome any margin of fraud.

Well, that's a DC way of saying too big to rig. And so when the president took that, he made it his own. And then we took that sentence and we tested it back in Ohio actually, and we found that over 63% of Republican voters in the state were more likely to vote early because Trump just said that. So I think all three messages, a combination of them really work and then tying it into Trump, and especially post Pennsylvania assassination attempt coupled with the Biden movements. I mean that's really resonating with voters right now. Issues still pop at the door. Of course, we talk a lot about safety and security, cost of living, cost of gas, kind of the larger economic discussion. Is your life better today than it was four years ago? Those sorts of conversations happen. I don't really see a lot about abortion at the door. I don't really see a lot about the cultural wars that are really important and happening in state and federal with state and federal lawmakers. That's not really happening at the door. It's really the border and safety and security from that and cost of living.

Eric Wilson:

You're listening to the Campaign Trend podcast. I'm speaking with Jessica Anderson, president of Sentinel Action Fund. Jessica, I want to shift gears for a minute because the traditional Super PAC playbook is to focus primarily on TV ad spending and maybe some digital here and there we hope. But Sentinel takes a different approach. Why is having a year round ground game so important to your strategy?

Jessica Anderson:

The reason we got into this business is because we realized that the left does year round relational organizing and the right hasn't done it because we've kind of geared up for an election day and then the day after the election, you close up shop and you go back to your home state and whatever brick and mortar story you were renting for yard signs is abandoned. Well, I've always felt that that was a mistake. Not only does it frustrate the volunteers that are really the firepower behind Sentinel Action Fund, but also any campaign because they're still in that community. So we shouldn't leave either. We should keep the footprint year round and operate in a lot of ways. Like the left has manipulated unions to do it. So when you move in and out of a community, you lose the relationships, you lose the continuity, you lose the momentum.

We are trying to turn that completely around and when we're in a community, we stay and the people that are part of our teams on the ground, they're from there. I think that that's really important. One part of the year we might be focused on a policy fight and holding a member of Congress accountable and going to their town hall or hosting a coffee or working with other partner organizations that do that. And then another part of the year we're talking about get out the vote and absentee ballots an early vote. It's the same volunteer that does both things. And so if we can stay present and have year round relational organizing, there's no need for a buildup and a drop off because you're just always present. It actually saves costs, which I think is an important component because the business of politics has gotten insanely expensive.

I mean, I don't even want to know the final spends at the end of this year because it's enough to probably fuel a small country. And so we want to save costs. We want to be more frugal, but really it's about the relationships and keeping them in place with the grassroots, with volunteers on a regular basis. We've rolled out a couple things this year actually, to make that even more special. We've got a new relational organizing app that we're really excited about that lets people reach out to their contacts, the people that are in their phone that they know to make sure that they've got their plans to vote, and then some really special teams that have been operating on the ground with door knocking and text message and phones and all of our target states.

Eric Wilson:

Yeah, I want to talk about canvassing and going door to door. It remains, despite all of the technology, the most effective way to persuade and activate voters. How are you using data and technology to make that process more scalable and efficient? This cycle?

Jessica Anderson:

We live and die by our data if our data is not clean, if it's delayed. So the delayed data is just the worst. So if we have a 24 hour lag on something, our team just feels like we're in the dark. That's just not a good place to be. Delayed. Data is almost worse than no data. So we live in die by our data, and I would just say that in the age of being inundated with television commercials, tons of text messages that are coming through emails, phone calls, it's really hard to ignore someone at your door. And if they're standing there and they clearly look like you, they sound like you. They have your accent and you may even recognize them because your kids go to school together or you've seen them at something. There's just something familiar about answering your door. Now, you may not have time for a 10 minute conversation, and that's okay.

We're happy to have a 32nd conversation, a two minute conversation, whatever your time allows. But I will say it's really hard to ignore someone at the door. And so we have a better pickup rate because of our door knockers and our canvassing teams are so well-trained, Eric. I mean, they can slide in and out of any conversation based on what's on the mind of that voter. The end of the goal though is to get them by the end of the conversation is to get a firm commitment. Will you commit to voting for Dave McCormick for Senate, for Trump, for president? That is our goal. We want to end the conversation with that. And if the answer is no or I'm not ready yet, well, let me send you some more information. Let me follow up. Can I swing by again next week and talk to you and maybe your spouse or a kid?

We can have a longer conversation. So I love canvassing for that reason. We see our door knocks and our data. We get a data dump at the end of every day, and so I can see daily what the pickup rate was for doors. I can see does the four to five 30 hour, okay, that's not working because people are coming home. Let's shift our volume after 6:00 PM or we need it before noon in this suburb because moms are home after dropping kids off at school. Those are the kind of things that data tells a story. You just have to listen and then just use a little bit of common sense of like, well, where am I at that point in my day? And so we're constantly making those tweaks in kind of the velocity of our door knockers and who goes out. I really like to have women out during the day because a lot of women are home in the suburbs, and so it's more comfortable at the door. So we're thinking about things like that, and it's really a data driven project because the data tells us these things if we look hard enough

Eric Wilson:

And so much goes into optimizing that contact. So if someone does open the door, you want to make sure that it's a positive experience. It's someone who looks and sounds like them. You mentioned relational organizing, which I'm a big believer in, and it's not as widespread on our side of the spectrum as it is on the left. Talk to us about what are the advantages that you saw there with relational organizing and why did you decide to add that to your toolbox this year?

Jessica Anderson:

We have to be more aggressive and strategic about relational organizing if we're going to win year over year, and I hearken this back to just a really simple antidote. My family, we sit around the kitchen table when I pick my kids up from school and we talk about the day, we talk about homework, we talk about what did our teachers do? I'll complain about the cost of groceries. I'll complain about my bill from Target. It's just all part of our day to day-to-Day. Well, those were policy conversations, it's education, it's teachers, it's cost of living policy is happening. It doesn't have to be this scary thing you only see on the, it's part of our day-to-Day. The minute the right took politics away from our kitchen table, we lost. My goal is to put it back because it's already there. We're already talking about it.

And it would be so natural then to say, oh, I wonder if my neighbor is planning to vote. I wonder if they have any questions about Tim Sheehy as the Senate candidate. I should remind them to go turn in their absentee ballot. Oh, I can just go grab it for them. There's things like that that are just, it's happening already. So put the right language there so that it way it's more natural and easy for voters to be relational in how we organize around politics. And the app that we have that we developed in partnership with this awesome tech company called Numan. We put this app together. It was literally a whiteboard idea at the beginning of last year of, okay, I have all these contacts in my phone. How do I make sure everybody in my phone has a plan to vote? Well, let's see if we can dump our contact list and match it to the voter file by state, and then have the voter file update.

Has Jessica, have I requested my absentee ballot? Yes or no? Have I turned it in? Yes or no? Have I voted early yes or no, or have I voted on election day? And those four inflection points, we can actually match to your contact list, which I know sounds a little scary, but Eric, the data's out there. We just need to use it to our benefit. We need to use it to win. So now I'm arming the average American, the grassroots activist, the mom at their kitchen table, nonpolitical operatives. I'm arming them with the same data that I see as a political operative, and I'm putting that power back in their hands. And now they can see, oh, my neighbor, Judy, she requested an absentee ballot, but she hasn't turned it in. Let me send her a text. And so it prompts you to send a text and it says, Hey, Judy, this is Jess down the street.

I just realized you haven't sent in your absentee ballot. Just a friendly reminder to get it in. Here's the deadline. And that's not crazy. That's not confrontational, that's not a bad look. That's just bringing the political conversation back to the kitchen table. It's putting power back in the hands of the grassroots. And so that's why I love it, and I think if we can prove that this is such an integral part of how to do elections, that we're going to see candidates and the party writ large embrace this type of organizing going forward. And that's really my hope here.

Eric Wilson:

Well, I hope you're right on that, and I think that's certainly where things are trending to get more relationships back into politics. My thanks to Jessica Anderson for a great conversation. You can learn more about Sentinel Action Fund in our show notes. If this episode made you a little bit smarter or gave you something to think about, all we ask is that you share it with a friend or colleague and then you look smarter in the process. So it's a win-win for everybody. Remember to subscribe to the Campaign Trend Podcast wherever you get your podcast, so you never miss an episode. Visit our website@campaigntrend.com for even more. With that, I'll say thanks for listening. We'll see you next time. The Campaign Trend Podcast is produced by Advocacy Content Kitchen, a media production studio.

‍