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The Democratic Member of Congress challenging Senator Ted Cruz in the US Senate in Texas broke fundraising records. The viral videos of O. Rourke's talk have captivated progressives across the country and prompted him to speak of him as a potential presidential candidate for 2020. And the innovative approaches to his campaign on the digital front and on the fronts of the organization could become a model for Democrats everywhere in the years to come.
However, less than three weeks after the November mid-term elections – and just four days before the start of the Texas early polls – polls still show that he's running late on Cruz.
O & # 39; Rourke will have a national audience and a chance to change race Thursday night, when CNN will host a party at 7pm. Public session with ET O & # Rourke, moderated by Dana Bash, in the border town of McAllen.
In recent days, O 'Rourke's tone has become much more confrontational – emphasizing that he has some ground to catch up and a short time to do it. O & # 39; Rourke began Wednesday to broadcast television ads directly to Cruz's attacker camera on immigration and health care. The new spots arrived the day after Cruz's assassination as "dishonest" during a debate in San Antonio.
"That's why the president called him" liar Ted "and that's why his nickname stayed – because it's true," he said.
"When an unconventional candidate becomes conventional, he separates himself like a cantaloupe," Cruz campaign director Jeff Roe said at the conclusion of Tuesday night's debate. "He has no second act, he has made a liberal bed, and tonight he has hidden in it."
O & # 39; Rourke is the only candidate for CNN Mayor. Cruz has declined multiple invitations to appear with O & # 39; Rourke. Cruz challenged Mr. O. Rourke last week to turn the debate into City Hall in debate, but both campaigns failed to agree on a format change.
A different democratic approach to Texas
O 'Rourke launched his campaign on the promise that he would never accept money from political action committees, even those in favor of progressives' interests. This promise, along with viral videos showing O 'Rourke defending the NFL players who protested during the national anthem, including skateboarding, have made him an online fundraiser and dynamo. 39, a modest value. And O 'Rourke broke all the Senate candidate records when, in the third quarter of 2018, he raised more than $ 38 million.
This money, which will allow him to spend more money than Cruz in an expensive ad, is one of the reasons why Democrats believe that O 'Rourke is more competitive than previous disappointments. in Texas, where the party has been excluded from power since 1994.
Another reason: O 'Rourke visited all 254 counties in the state, attracting a huge crowd in small towns and cities where event enthusiasts said they did not see a Democrat at the time. Statewide since Ann Richards, the governor in the early 1990s.
But that might not be enough – especially to convince Latino voters, a constituency that Democrats must reach to win in Texas.
In 2016, Latinos accounted for 28% of the population eligible to vote in Texas, but only 20% of the electorate – people who had actually voted – according to the Census Current Population Survey. In mid-term elections, Latinos constituted an even smaller share of the Texas electorate. Recent polls have shown that O 'Rourke had a lead over the Latinos, but did not see the renewed interest sparked by the midterm elections that Democrats saw in the spring. other constituencies, such as women.
The innovative digital process of O & # 39; Rourke
If O. Rourke outperforms the polling day on Election Day – and touches ridings that Democrats often ignored in Texas – it will be because of his efforts in digitization and organizing, both led by veterans of Bernie Sanders. presidential campaign.
On the ground, Mr. O. Rourke's campaign has adopted a "distributed organization" – a strategy that has directed ground troops in favor of Sanders' presidential campaign in places where no paid staff was on the ground. Rather than giving field offices to the larger towns and villages of the vast state, O & # 39; Rourke Field Director, Zack Malitz, and its organizers have launched hundreds of "ephemeral offices," which are in reality of spaces like houses and garages of super volunteers.
To raise funds, O 'Rourke also followed Mr Sanders' approach.
Three consultants – Shelby Cole, advertising strategist Liz Bennett and graphic designer Camilo Caffi – were the core of O'Rourke's first digital team. The group has expanded over the summer when Middle Seat Digital hired the three candidates. Kenneth Pennington and Hector Sigala, two strategists of the digital organization, also worked on O 's campaign Rourke.
Bennett's ads have built the massive email list of O. Rourke. And Cole – who had originally sold O 'Rourke on the vision of a campaign that could generate huge sums of money online if he was not relying on a revolutionary digital effort – was running the e-mail program .
The emails of O. Rourke are much longer and personal than most political fundraising solicitations. He never uses popular tactics such as false deadlines, warnings without a future, or "final notifications" to frighten potential donors.
"If you quote me by describing Shelby and Liz, please use the word" geniuses, "because that's what they are," said Mike Nellis, a digital consultant for California Senator Kamala Harris.
"I do not think they're getting the credit they deserve," he said. "At least for Democratic consultants, they should be familiar names."
O & # 39; Rourke has also filmed the content of his digital ads, rather than reassigning TV spots, and also has an extensive archive of Facebook feeds turned into commercials.
A recent study by the Wesleyan Media Project revealed that between May 31 and September 3 this year, 53% of Mr. O. Rourke's advertising spend was devoted to digital – a much larger share than other major Democratic candidates.
Facebook's political advertising archives show that O 'Rourke has released more than 5,800 ad variations, including 460 currently active, on the platform. Google's political advertising report shows that Mr. O. Rourke is the only candidate to spend more than a million dollars on Google ads this year. Digital Democratic strategists also said that O. Rourke had been particularly effective at advertising on YouTube, which is often an afterthought for candidates.
Tara McGowan, a Democrat strategist who ran the Super Cities Priorities program in super PAC in 2016 and then launched ACRONYM, credited Mr. O. Rourke's campaign to understand the value of authenticity to reach donors. One ad she talked about was a Facebook fundraising solicitation that featured O 'Rourke, sitting on the doorstep, explaining his strategy without a cap, and saying, "I'm not sure about it. I need your help one last time … I'm counting on you, and I'm grateful. "
"Too many candidates and party committees still today are bending far too close to outdated assumptions about how to win elections and rely on a very old and outdated model," she said. . "You do not choose a very small targeted group of people and do not meet them one-on-one or through television and move the needle enough to win."
Sharpen his Cruz attacks
His impressive fundraising and innovative organizational methods may not be enough, but in a contest where Cruz masters the one-line political attack and where O & # 39; Rourke hesitated until recently to back off.
During the debate on Tuesday night, Cruz had warned that to elect O 'Rourke would entail "two years of partisan circus and a witch hunt directed against the president".
He also mocked the more combative approach of O 'Rourke.
"It is clear that pollsters of Congressman O 'Rourke told him to participate in the attack," Cruz said.
Cruz's effort to align with Trump is a bet that O 'Rourke will not succeed in attracting a significant number of new voters. A CNN poll released Tuesday revealed that Trump's approval rate for all adults in Texas was 41%. But it is much higher – 49% – among likely voters.
Trump plans to travel to Texas Oct. 22 – the day of early voting – for a big rally with Cruz in Houston.
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