Conversation: Inside Democrats' Tech Playbook

Matt Dailer:

Just imagine going to the Super Bowl and getting the playbook handed to you from the team that you're going up against. This is basically what the Democrats do.

Eric Wilson:

I'm Eric Wilson, managing Partner of Startup Caucus, the home of campaign tech Innovation on the right. Welcome to the Business of Politics Show. On this podcast, you are joining in on a conversation with entrepreneurs, operatives, and experts who make professional politics happen. Today's conversation is all about the state of campaign tech on the left. Yes, the left higher ground labs. The Democrats startup ecosystem Hub recently released their annual political tech landscape report, which you'll find linked in the show notes. If you've ever seen the very crowded chart of all the tech that democratic campaigns use, you know, this report we're digging into the report and sharing some insights about this unique glimpse into what the other side is working on and building to share their thoughts. We're joined by Matt Dailer, vice President at National Public Affairs. He's run campaigns all over the country and advised campaign tech startups and Amanda Elliot, founder of Anchor City Strategies, the author of the Doom Scroll on CK and an Experienced Digital Strategist. So ladies first, Amanda, we'll start with you. What was your big takeaway from reading this report?

Amanda Elliott:

My big takeaway is something I think maybe you guys can both relate to is just that the fact that Higher Ground Labs even put out this report signals a level of seriousness about tech and campaign tech specifically that maybe is a little bit lacking on our side. So every time they put this report out or you know, some group talks about the political tech stack on the left, it makes me do this whole like introspection of like, wow, nobody on our side of the aisle really talks about tech in this way. That's always the biggest headline that I get from stuff like this. And and I even put that, you know, in Dooms Girl a couple weeks ago, is just like, we don't talk about this. So I'm, I love that we're doing this podcast, but the righteous isn't talking about tech that

Eric Wilson:

Much. Yeah. There's a level of professionalism and sophistication in, in reports like this that you, you mean you just look at the, the contributors they had, I mean, I think they probably had a few dozen people contribute. They, they had someone whose job it was to produce that report, they got input from other people. So it was very professional, very intentional, which I think is different from our site.

Matt Dailer:

Yeah, I mean, agreeing with everything Amanda's saying, just imagine going to the Super Bowl and getting the playbook handed to you from the team that you're going up against. This is basically what the Democrats do is, you know, they come together, talk about their problems, their successes, and then they publish this report and we can all read it. And I feel like we just go around in circles on the right and be like, wow, look at this. And there's no innovation. We don't take it any further besides reading this, hoping others will do something about it. Or frankly, we kind of just get behind and wait for the next thing to appear in our ecosystem.

Eric Wilson:

Yeah, it does read a little, like there's a cultural difference where the, the, the left is much more of a movement of a political party where on our side we are a collection of, of de competing interests, different businesses. You know, when you're in a movement, when you're on the same team, you want everyone to have the best practices and make sure they're doing everything the right way. When you are competing as a bunch of small businesses you are, you're trying to keep your secret sauce. You don't want to share what you are doing. And, and we all know that there's no secret sauce. It's, it's hard work. It's making sure that you're organized. And by the way, it helps to have really good tech and tools, but this ecosystem sharing that they have is indicative of a movement of a party rather than what we seem to have.

Amanda Elliott:

Yeah, I think it's always kind of been that way and we, we have a, we have this conversation so often. I remember when, when Red came out a couple years ago, you know, that was a big conversation around that is like, we have all like these competing payment processors or whatever and you know, the Democrats like forever ago coalesced around act blue, which gave them a huge advantage and it took us how long to get win red. You know, it doesn't solve all the problems, but it's just, it's, it is kind of a symbol of just the difference in culture between our side and their side and how they, they, you know, rally around you know, different companies or, or tech products and just make it work and approach it as like a movement, like you said.

Eric Wilson:

And I know we've got a lot of democratic listeners to the, the podcast and, and so I wanna make sure that we, we also appreciate that the grass is always greener on the other side. I think if you had a, a frank conversation with our counterparts on the left, they'd say, oh, the, the Republicans have it, you know, figured out and, and, and we'll, we'll get to it in a minute, but there, there's some places where we certainly do have an advantage when it comes to running campaigns, but there, there is a downside to this sort of centralization. So one of the things that is mentioned in the report is N G P van, every action, it's been rolled up into this new company called Bonterra, which is managed by Apex, which is a giant private equity firm. And they've just laid off a bunch of employees. And so they're starting to be some, some concerns about, okay, this company got so big it's used by all democratic campaigns, left wing nonprofits and pacs. It was making so much money that it became of interest to private enterprise. And then it may not be run in the best way for their movement. So I, I think it's important that we, we are clear-eyed about there are some, some advantages and disadvantages or at least some diminishing margins of return.

Matt Dailer:

Yeah, and I mean, when you read this and if you're running a campaign, you should really read this. They are facing, we face similar problems. You can pick little things out of the report, like, oh yes. You know, like we definitely face that issue. They o admit it and then they talk amongst their peers about it. Now we don't know what goes on at all the shops in DC but we can assume that, you know, not much of that leaks outside to try to make anything better. It all just stays within the company to try to compete with each other.

Eric Wilson:

So let's dig into the report a little bit more. You know, I think the one thing that always surprises me, and I think this is a factor of them having a lot of talent in terms of, of, of technologists and resources in terms of investors, but they, there seems to be a strategy on the left of, of having multiple companies working on similar problems. So one example is relational organizing. So this is, they're, they're probably, where are we at three or four apps on the left that offer relational organizing where you download an app as a volunteer, upload your contacts, and then match that to a voter file and a campaign comes in and says you know, these are the friends that you need to contact. What do you make of that strategy of them kind of putting a bunch of options out there at the same time?

Amanda Elliott:

To me it says, at the end of the day, even Democrats are still like into capitalism, <laugh>. I mean, you know, as much as they like to pretend otherwise, like they're, they're still gonna embrace this whole like, you know, let's have a bunch of different small, you know, startups compete to create a, a good product. And, and it's easier to scale for these companies anyway. And, and, you know, the last thing you want on election day or leading up to election day is like, put all your eggs in one basket on this like, new tech product and then have it fail or crash. And I think they get that. So, I mean, I, we, everyone, you know, I think in the political world should understand that. So I, I think it just behooves them to, and, and they get it, you know, cuz they're still at the end of the day capital is just like we are. They, they I think the competition is a good thing.

Eric Wilson:

Well, I tell people all the time that the, the left is using capitalism to advance socialism and they're, they've perfected technology to advance their ideology.

Amanda Elliott:

Yeah. It's kind of ironic.

Eric Wilson:

One of the other things I think jumps out with that strategy of letting a bunch of different flowers bloom, is it bypasses a problem that, that I see with, with companies on, on our side, which is, I call it the double sales problem. So you have to convince your customer that something is a problem. Then you have to convince them that your the right solution. Well, when you have two people in a marketplace or three or four have already validated the problem, it's now a decision of which vendor, which software do I go with? Not, oh, is this a problem? So I think that's a, a real advantage to them where you, you, you know, yes, you have some degree of competition, but also it just sort of assumes the premise of yeah, we need to do relational organizing. Wh which one are you gonna pick? Not do I need to do relational organizing or not?

Amanda Elliott:

Yeah, that's a really good point.

Matt Dailer:

Yeah, I mean they, it's like they, they look back on the last cycle, they realize, hey, we think we had this issue with a lot of campaigns, you know, who wants to take the role on trying to fix it or let's try to solve it together. And a lot of the companies go at it, right, to try to fix it. And then as you say, that validates the, you know, campaign. So a lot of people are talking about this, we should consider this too. And I just don't think that we are good at admitting that we failed at getting better at something or being creative when they just go right at it. Cuz it makes, I mean, it makes them better and they get the entire ecosystem going at, you know, trying to solve it instead of just one off companies handling it themselves, which on our side, it's very hard to get traction. Right? I mean, just working with you, Eric, and the startup caucus and trying to get, you know, those companies plugged in with campaigns, it's hard, it's really hard. We, a lot of campaigns don't want to take these risks with using resources on something that they wanna assume maybe is not a problem to them. And then to realize afterwards when it's too late that, oh, this could have helped

Eric Wilson:

One of the ways that they advanced this and, and it, again, this was like, it just jumped out at me as I was reading the report. I think I counted it up and it was like seven different studies, randomized control trials, ab tests that they cite in this report that they are public, right? These aren't even the tests that we aren't getting to see that are, are behind closed doors. They're using their, their, their nonprofits and, and these sort of dedicated packs to test out the technology and come up with these, these tests. Which, which I think goes a long way in, in helping their ecosystem buy-in. Are, are we doing anything like that on, on our side? In in, in like a coordinated way?

Amanda Elliott:

If there is, let me know.

Eric Wilson:

<Laugh>.

Matt Dailer:

<Laugh> seriously. Yeah, exactly. Probably not because I mean, I feel like for us, they just go back to tra well, we just do tv. That is what we do as a, as the nonprofit or the organization or we do mail or so forth. And it's, you know, not trying anything new.

Eric Wilson:

Yeah. And there is a, I I think there's an, again, it goes back to this difference between our, our movements, our political parties, right? Where they, they sort of have this always on of, of, you know, we're always whe whether it's abortion, the environment labor unions, they've always got something going on. Whereas on the right it seems like we, we kind of pop up a around elections like <laugh>, you know, because as I mean I guess if you wanna,

Amanda Elliott:

It's a lot of long-term planning. Yeah. And I mean, I guess, I don't know, one of the things that also kind of stuck out to me as I was reading this and one of the big questions I had was like, okay, they have all these companies and we're sitting here talking about how awesome, you know, they have all these startups and whatever, but who, like, I wanna know who are the people that are actually starting these companies and like launching these products? Are they tech people who just happen to be Democrats? Are they Democrat operatives who like leave the campaign world to go start these tech companies? Cause they see the need? Like who are these people and where is the incentive? Like where are the incentives coming from? Just like launch these companies to begin with and where is that missing on our side? Like I, you know, I work with campaign people all the time, day in and day out. I don't know if, if I were to pull them, like, would you start a tech startup or like launch a company or something? Like I can't, I I could probably count on one hand the number of people who would say yes.

Eric Wilson:

Yeah. And I, I, so I think a couple things are, are, are happening that, that, that I could point to. The first is there's it is easier to step away from your job at a Facebook or a Google or a Netflix and then go build something for Democratic campaigns. And if it doesn't work out, you've always got your job back at the other that that door does not go the same way for a Republican. I think they would. So, so there's, there's a little bit of a risk there. So you, you get the, the, the pool is a little bit better. There's also, again, it keeps going back to the cultural thing. The, the republican technologists that I talk to all the time, they're like, well, you know, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm a Republican, but I'd really rather just build an app that goes out and makes a bunch of money and then support candidates that I like.

They don't really see there, there's not as much cause-based you know, they're not willing to, to give up the, the financial return because it, it support their team. The last thing that I'll say, it goes back to this, this nonprofit ecosystem that they have. So you look at you know, from an investment perspective, we're looking at what is the total addressable market? How big can you possibly get? And you know, if you're just looking at Republican campaigns, there's an upper limit on that. But on the left you say, okay, well, you know, I can do lots of Democratic campaigns, but then I could also go do Greenpeace or Human rights campaign or all of the labor unions and they've just got this huge ecosystem of, of nonprofits that, that in a lot of ways help subsidize their, their technology development that we are missing on, on the right just because we don't have as developed a, a nonprofit ecosystem.

You're listening to the Business of Politics Show. We're talking about the latest report from Higher Ground Labs about the campaign tech landscape on the left. Alright. There are three big things that they highlight in their report. The first is, is fundraising, second is influencers, and the third is, is data and infrastructure. So I want to break down those so they put a real emphasis. So you know, listeners of the show know that we, we face a deficit on the Republican side of the aisle when it comes to grassroots fundraising. That typically means online fundraising. We, we know that, that that gives us a huge disadvantage on hard dollars. The Democrats are far in a way more skilled at this than, than we are. They're in a better position. But you read this report and they're, they are very focused on maintaining their advantage to figure out how do they stay ahead of generational changes. How do they avoid the spammy tactics that we've talked about? What did you make of, well, they, they offer a few solutions. I'm curious to see if, if any of them jumped out to you as, as particularly noteworthy as something that we might be able to use on the right. Yeah,

Matt Dailer:

I mean, back to, you know, we're facing the same problems as, as they are. And the report shows that, I mean, I think the AI using to prospect to find small dollar donors is something that, you know, we have talked about and they are definitely investing in and trying to get that going. Which I think is smart, but also, and it goes back to just who we are. We're always afraid to trust people to do things for us and campaigns <laugh>, and there's nothing more scarier than having a volunteer probably be a fundraiser for you. Right? And they seem that they are not afraid of that, and that that is something that they are embracing. And we know this through social organizing and community organizing, there's no better person to deliver a message to you than somebody you know, and they're kind of adapting that I feel like, into the small dollars of not the email from, from the candidate, not the spam text, a literal contact from someone, you know, Hey, I just gave $5 to Eric Wilson for governor, he needs help. It'd be great if you can get $5 too. I know that we're together in this.

Eric Wilson:

One of the things that they, they highlight I believe the company is called Hover Cast. So and Amanda, this goes back to your, your bigger point. They, they also are involved in a little bit of technology capture where they take something that's from a different marketplace and get it exclusively for Democrats. So Greenfly is example of this, right? So it is previously like a sports marketing thing. They went with higher ground labs and now don't work with Republicans. So the an example being like hover cast, which like has virtual events. So I think there was a Wisconsin Democrats used this to do a reunion of the West Wing cast and the Veep cast as a big fundraiser. They raised like $700,000 essentially from a Zoom. Do you see this as being something that we would try or even be able to muster on our side?

Amanda Elliott:

Try <laugh>? Yes. Maybe Muster, I don't know. I mean, obviously there's a lack of or there's a gap, you know, between the left and the right in terms of like star power and

Eric Wilson:

Like that's true. You

Amanda Elliott:

Know, what cast of what show can we get to compete with West Wing or Veep? I don't know. But yeah, I mean I think we could do maybe a better job of embracing virtual events like that even past Covid and, and maybe bringing tools to market that help us do things like that. And, and again, like Matt was talking about the, their whole relational organizing thing that jumped out at me too. It was like, yeah, that's a really smart tactic to maybe try to lean into and utilize, but will we do it on our side? I don't know, because I don't, again, like it goes back to a culture thing. Like Republican campaigns just don't tend to buy into the relational organizing aspect of campaigning, which is kind of a shame. But should we try it? Yes. Well do I think there will be some campaigns out there who are gonna be more innovative and willing to try these things? Yeah, absolutely. But you know, I guess we'll just see how it plays out.

Eric Wilson:

I also wanna go back to, to something Matt touched on, which was the, the sort of the software following the donor. So Act Blue really pioneered this, like you have an Act Blue login, and then campaigns are on Act blue, and you, you log into that, you've got you know, some organizations and and platforms on the the left that are, are, you know, giving you the tools to make sure that you're managing your donations well, as, as someone who may give at, you know, five, 20, $50 a gift. And so I think that's a trend that's worth keeping an eye on. You know, one of the things that I think our side has woken up to is the, the need for more of a conversion funnel, more of personalization. And that's an area where technology can be really helpful. I is making sure that you're managing all of those segments that you're creating and, and tracking content and things like that.

So I I, I hope that's something that we wake up to. The second topic of course is influencers, right? So they, they talk a lot about the, the, the need for platforms that help campaigns connect with social media influencers. I think this is a challenge that is more acutely facing democrats because their, their coalition is mostly younger, which means that they're harder to reach on traditional TV, advertising, phones, things like that where, you know, Republicans, I think we have a little bit of a reprieve, maybe one or two cycles, but you, you've seen recently in the news that the, the Biden reelect campaign is all about the influencer strategy because that's frankly the only way that you can reach these fragmented audiences at scale. And if you, if you have the biggest campaign in the country recognizing that they are not going to be able to produce enough content by enough ads to reach everyone than than, what does that say for, for other

Matt Dailer:

Campaigns? Yeah. As capitalists, you would think that we would adopt this much sooner. You know, if you're on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram, you're going, you can see it through other companies doing it all the time now with product placement almost of what people are pushing to you and for them, I think they definitely, I've had, I had conversations, I remember having conversations last cycle with a few people about this one. The new rules were put in place about advertising on these platforms. It was like, well, you can see what companies are doing. They're putting the, they're doing product placement now and paying influencers to talk about these things as a way to get around it. I don't, I'm not sure if that many people did that on our side, but I mean, that's just so smart to do it that way. And yes, they do have, you know, way more celebrities and things like that.

I probably have a lot more followers. You know, it's interesting to see a o c you know, be so pro TikTok and it's like lot wonder why that is. It's like, oh, she has most followers than anyone in the country. That's probably why she just, you know, ban it. But it, there's something real there. And the more you can drill that down to these micro influencers, I think in the report they talk about maybe 10,000 followers they consider as someone good to do that. Yeah. And if you can get those people to talk about your campaign or talk about donating to the campaign and put the link up, that is going to be effective.

Eric Wilson:

I was struck also by the institutional commitment to running these campaigns. So you saw the, the DNC ran an influencer campaign, a number of their, their bigger organizations ran campaigns. I think the, the hesitancy on, on our side is, you know, we just got to the point where we're like, oh, we were, we're gonna really measure our, our TV impressions and make sure that we're, we're doing things really well. And, and it's like, oh, well I, you know, I, how do I measure a a social media impression? And so I think that's gonna be a little bit of a mindset shift of people asking or being suspicious of what are we paying for? You know, and, and it's not just direct response. It's gotta be persuasion, it's gotta be awareness.

Amanda Elliott:

Yeah. And I think there's a lot of nervousness on our side about handing over the keys to, of a creative that's true to creative, to someone that you can't control at all. And I don't think, I think most influencers are, you know, willing to take the check, but not the oversight. And so I think there's definitely nervousness on, on our side about like, okay, well, you know, 20 year old Joe Smith student at NYU who has a million followers on TikTok, like, we don't know exactly what he is gonna say. We may not like it. And I, I think we are very like, hyper-focused on messaging on campaigns sometimes for our touch, our detriment. But the other thing I would say too, on the whole influencer thing is, you know, I get why the left does it, they they need to do it. But I, you know, I I would just caution in this whole conversation, like, let's, let's be careful of not like chasing things just because the left is doing it.

Like, you know, they have some really good ideas. Yeah. but the, with the influencer marketing and especially I have so many like, mixed feelings about it. I don't wanna not try it on our side, but I also don't wanna like pour all these resources into it just because Democrats are you know, cuz like you said, our voters aren't on TikTok. So like as digital strategists, we still need to be very cognizant of pouring time and effort into places where we know our people are not that we should ignore these other platforms or these other mediums, but just kind of like being aware of like striking that good balance.

Eric Wilson:

Yeah. We're different, we're different constituencies, different campaigns, different needs. And, and I think that's always, you know, when when people ask me, he's like, oh, do you just copy and paste what, what the left does? And like that's, that doesn't work. Cause our, our voters, our donors, our volunteers totally different. That's that's a good point.

Matt Dailer:

Yeah. And they talk about too, you know, having the candidates be the content creators as well, which I'll get plug to Senator Grassley, the, the king of content one on a lot of things. But being creative like that, I mean, corn watch you know, dear Dead things that he's said on, he said on Twitter that just catches fire. Not just you standing outside of the county g o p office. Hey, just met with 20 people at the county G o P office, be interesting, be likable, tell people what you do in a day so that they are interested in you and start following you, and hopefully you can turn that into something offline.

Eric Wilson:

So I want to end on, I think what should be a positive note for our side. They, they do talk about some efforts on, on the left to modernize and improve their, their data infrastructure. So on, on the right, we have the data trust, which is a huge asset for, for Republicans and, and our allies. The Democrats don't have that. I think people should be surprised to know that that voter files are a huge money maker for state democratic parties. And, and that that is not the case on, on the right. And so they've been, there's been a struggle to, to undo that. And you, you see this a little bit in their report where they're, they're, they're focusing on, you know, making sure data is being shared, making sure data is being organized in, in a, in a fashion. But that's something that we, you know, we learned our lesson on and, and caught up and, and I think leapfrog. So again, kind of cautionary tale about resting on your laurels. And I, and I don't think that we're doing that, but it just shows you how, how hard it is to overcome an a disadvantage when you're, you're not up to speed.

Matt Dailer:

Yeah. And I mean, on that point with data, and John Black and Brian Parsky doing a great job leading that for the party and John through all the entire ecosystem. And I think that's where we're doing a really good job, Eric, with these nonprofit conservative nonprofits finally getting active within the ecosystem to, to help improve things. And that's within sharing of data and how it's warehouse and shared with other campaigns. We, we do a fantastic job with that.

Eric Wilson:

Well, I want to thank our guests, Matt Dealer and Amanda Elliot for a fascinating conversation. You can learn more about them in our, our show notes. And if you have your own thoughts to add, make sure you, you shoot us an email or tweet us eager to hear your thoughts. Again, you can read that report at the link in our show notes. Remember to subscribe to the Business of Politics Show wherever you get your podcasts. And if this episode made you a little bit smarter, all we ask is that you share it with a, a friend and maybe it'll spark a conversation. With that, I'll say thank you and we'll see you next time.

‍