Tag Archives: organization

Newt Gingrich’s clear come-from-behind victory in the January 21 South Carolina primary has made the Republican Presidential Primary a lot more exciting than it looked after Iowa and New Hampshire.

Clearly, many Republicans remain reluctant to embrace Romney. If the opposition coalesce around Gingrich, the not-Romney of the moment, the party is in for a long grind of a primary.

One question right now is whether Gingrich has the organization to make the most of his momentum.

Florida, January 31, is the first test. Romney has been ahead in the polls there lately, but his support is eroding and as recently as December, Gingrich had a solid lead. The political climate in the sunshine state can be fickle and is prone to dramatic changes. It serves one well to be well prepared.

In South Carolina, Gingrich was able to build on his strong debate performances, “earned media”, i.e. news coverage playing up alternatives to the front-runner, and the self-reinforcing momentum generated as more and more people came to see him as the most credible challenger to rally a plurality of the non-Romney vote around him. If Santorum drops out now or his supporters begin to think that a vote for him is a vote wasted, Gingrich has the potential to be a considerable challenge for Romney.

But “the Mitt” seems better equipped for the tough grind ahead. While he continues to have a “base problem”, he does better than anyone else in hypothetical match-ups against President Obama, lending credence to his argument he is best positioned to do well in the November general election.

Romney also has a much stronger operation in place to fight for the margins in every upcoming state. Consider just money, organization, and organized support–

Money. A long multi-state primary is expensive. Romney has raised much more money than Gingrich. In the last quarter of 2011, he raised $24 million, compared to Gingrich’s $9 million.

Organization. A long multi-state primary is also complicated to coordinate and involves a lot of hard work on the ground. Romney has his organization, data infrastructure, web presence etc in place nationally. He is very active in states like Florida, where his campaign has been working for months, both on the air and on the ground (Gingrich opened his office there January  13). Romney also already has an office in Nevada (caucuses February 4). It is not clear that the Gingrich campaign has any real presence there. In December, a local operative working with his campaign told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that there were no immediate plans to open an office in the state. (That is bound to change after his South Carolina win.)

Organized support. A long multi-state primary is not something you want to fight on your own. Romney is not only racking up endorsements, fundraising contacts, inside advice etc from establishment Republicans afraid Gingrich just might win and wreck the party in the process. He also enjoys greater Super PAC/ “outside” support. Even after Sheldon Adelson’s headline-grabbing $5 million donation to the pro-Gingrich-though-in-no-way-coordinating-with-his-campaign “Winning Our Future” super PAC, Romney continues to enjoy more support. The pro-Romney group “Restore Our Future,” run by two key staffers from his 2008 campaign, has spent more than double the amount of “Winning our Future” so far. It will provide a handy vehicle for people keen to stop Gingrich but reluctant to back Romney directly.

Where does that leave Gingrich? Can he build on yesterday’s result? Here is what Mac Stipanovich, a GOP strategist in Florida, had to say to the LA Times:

“Romney has worked the state continuously, one way or another, for the last six years. …  Gingrich lacks both the organization and the financial resources to capitalize on a win in South Carolina.”

That may just be true of the February states Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, and Michigan too.

Good organization does not guarantee victory, but it sure helps. If Gingrich is to compete in the long run, he and his supporters need to build a stronger and more resourceful campaign now to capitalize on the anti-Romney sentiment. Otherwise, “the Mitt” will grind them down.

My book, Ground Wars: Personalized Communication in Political Campaigns, deals with how American political campaigns mobilize, organize, and target their field operations, using large numbers of volunteers and paid part-timer workers to contact voters at home at the door or over the phone. It will be published in February 2012 by Princeton University Press and is available for pre-order on Amazon.

(cross-posted on Politics in Spires)

Now that the final debate before the Iowa caucus is over and till voting begins January 3, the candidates vying for the Republican presidential nomination will have to rely on advertising, direct mail, and field operations more than the media coverage each debate has generated. Two more debates are crammed in in the few days between Iowa and the New Hampshire primary, and more are to come, but for a few weeks, there will be more action on the ground than in the television studios.

With Newt Gingrich’s having surged in recent weeks as the latest in a succession of “not-Mitt-Romney”-candidates, Romney, for a long time the front-runner and likely nominee, has a few decisive weeks ahead of him. Real Clear Politics’ poll averages suggest Gingrich could win both Iowa (January 3) and South Carolina (January 21) while Romney remain ahead in New Hampshire (January 10).

With the race still very fluid and Gingrich’s support in the polls showing some signs of weakness, things are still very much up in the air, but as he faces all the challenges ahead, Romney seems to have one clear operational advantage that is rarely mentioned in the news–his organization on the ground. The Financial Times is one of the few news organizations that have paid much attention to this side of the contest, and as their reporters note, “Mr Gingrich has little grassroots organisation to replace the platform the debates have given him.”

Especially in low-turnout, high-stakes contests like the early caucuses and primaries, literally every vote counts, and Romney, in contrast to the recently revived Gingrich, has for months been building an organization on the ground in several states to gather information about supporters and swing voters and to court voters in a personal fashion.

Here is how one Romney adviser is spinning the difference in New Hampshire (from the FT):

Staffers at Mr Romney’s office brush off Mr Gingrich’s recent gains in the polls, saying he has neither the ground operation to compete nor the volunteers who are the lifeblood of a state primary campaign. “In three days, we can turn out people for a big rally. Newt can’t do that stuff,” said one of Mr Romney’s advisers. “It’s not rocket science; it’s about old-fashioned shoe leather. We have identified 20,000 or 30,000 people who like Mitt Romney. Newt Gingrich has no idea who likes Newt Gingrich.”

In a time of social media and 24/7 rolling news, canvassing and phone banking can seem hopelessly old-fashioned, frustratingly slow, and to small-scale to make much of a difference, but campaigns are increasingly orchestrating personalized contacts on a very large scale and research gives us good reason to think that a knock on the door or a call from an enthusiastic and/or well-trained person represent some of the most effective ways of swaying people politically.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out as the Republican primaries remain very much in flux. Especially in a potentially drawn-out and close contest, hard work by people on the ground may produce a surprise or two along the way as the nomination is decided over the next months–as it did in the Obama/Clinton contest in 2008.

My book, Ground Wars: Personalized Communication in Political Campaigns, deals with how American political campaigns mobilize, organize, and target their field operations, using large numbers of volunteers and paid part-timer workers to contact voters at home at the door or over the phone. It will be published in February 2012 by Princeton University Press and is available for pre-order on Amazon.