Hello. Welcome to another edition of Doomscroll, your favorite newsletter covering all things digital on the right and where we will be, tonight anyway, mourning the break-up (betrayal?) of the century. I know I speak for all of us when I say, PLEASE HELP ME PICK A SIDE. Am I Team Elon? Team Trump? Switzerland? Can I be mad at both of them for ruining what we had? As my favorite philosopher once wrote, “Did you have to ruin what was shiny? Now it’s all rusted.”
Now we got bad blood. Let’s get to some scrolling.
One Question
Thanks to everyone who answered last week’s One Question about giving advice to the youths who want to move to DC and work in digital. Ya’ll let it all out! Here are some responses:
A) Come to DC with the mindset of “YES” - say yes to every opportunity, happy hour, coffee meet up, extra work at the office, task, etc. Some of the biggest opportunities in my career came from saying yes and meeting new people from that, and go that extra mile at work. People notice if you do and don’t. B) Find mentors in the digital space and ask all the questions. It’s such a massive field and “digital” means so many things these days. Find the area you are most intrigued by (organic social, advertising, fundraising, advocacy, etc.) and get as much experience as possible in those areas. And try to stick with a company for 2 years before moving onto the next opportunity.
I run a remote firm and my advice is move to dc and try to find in person and network. Be nice/honest to everyone
Take initiative and learn skills that aren't covered in political science classes like Photoshop and Premiere Pro
Stolen but this tweet is good career advice for people entering the workforce (and a good reminder for those of us who have been in the workforce) "If you are just starting out, you need to realize one thing: Your job is to make a company more money than they pay you. It is up to you to build skills that can create profit for your employer.
The most basic ones:
- Become proficient at Microsoft Excel.
- Be a short and succinct communicator.
- Be eager to learn and demand more work when you're finished with what you're working on.
- Respond to emails and Slack messages QUICKLY.- Never say "no" to a task that needs to be done.
Harder ones:
- Learn how to solve problems without asking your boss for help.
- Figure out where the leverage is and which 20% of activities drive 80% of the results. Do more of the 20%.
- Proactively pitch and implement new ideas that can make the company more money. These could be new ideas for marketing, sales, technology, etc.
- Work to create or refine repeatable processes and playbooks inside the business.
- Learn to manage and build a team so your department's productivity can improve.
- Think 3-6 months ahead and plan and build for the future state of the business.Take it upon yourself to learn these things and practice them over and over again or you will experience a lot of mediocrity in your career.
Spend a couple cycles building your personal network in your home state before you make the leap to the national stage. National campaigns, and more importantly firms, respect a personal network more than anything. New skills can be taught fairly quickly, but a good relationship takes years to build. Make yourself valuable and build the relationships before you expect to conquer the world.
A) Don’t do it just because you think you have to. My path is unconventional, but I never lived in DC for my own job and I’ve ran digital departments and my own business. B) Apply, and be eager to learn. When I am hiring I am good with green on skill. If you have the right attitude and a political sense I can teach the hard skills. If you have a bad attitude, mentors and managers won’t waste the time they don’t have.
1. Go Where the Conversations Are D.C. is a networking town. The job you want is likely one conversation away. Go to policy meetups, digital strategy happy hours, campaign tech briefings, and anything hosted by think tanks or advocacy groups. Don’t just show up—show interest. Ask thoughtful questions. Follow up. 2. Start with Impact, Not Prestige Don’t hold out for the perfect title at a major firm or a congressional office. Instead, look for a role where you can build something like a digital program or a social strategy. Small shops and start-ups in advocacy or political consulting often offer faster growth, more hands-on work, and better stories to build a career. 3. Know the Tools of the Trade If you want to work in digital, you need fluency in the language of platforms and metrics. 4. And Then Be a Translator The most valuable digital folks in D.C. can explain to a 55-year-old policy director why TikTok matters—or to a candidate why a 2% clickthrough rate is a win. Learn to translate between tech, politics, and people. That’s where your power will lie.
Just get a job. Don’t worry about the firm or the pay (whatever you need to pay for rent). You’d be shocked at how far you can get in the next 4 years with hard work and being AI native. Go join a presidential when they launch in 2027.
A) I can’t claim credit since it was advice I was given when I started in DC: There are two types of people in DC - people who care about their title and people who care about their work. The former eventually get found out, and the latter eventually get the title. B) Do everything. Do the social, update the website, send the emails. Nothing compares to learning by doing.
A) Secure an internship, move here, and just do it. I moved to DC on an internship with a small savings working part-time in college. Interned and took odd jobs on the weekends, lived in a room so tiny that it legally could not be considered a bedroom. It can be uncomfortable and stressful at times but you’re in your twenties and it’ll be a funny story one day. Pro Tip: you can eat and drink for free at a number of receptions to get you by. B) Specialize in the aspects of digital no one else is interested in learning. Everyone wants to be a press secretary, campaign manager, digital director etc. Become the best email marketing or ads manager, learn to code 😉, or learn data management. If you specialize in the technical side of politics you’ll always be in demand. C) Including this because I’m mad I missed the recommendations last week. Salt which is a restaurant under the Observation Tower in Rosslyn has a Wagyu Burger that is best burger in the DMV… although these days it’s $33 but still so worth it.
Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who replied! A lot of this advice is seriously very good, and reinforces what I already knew about this crowd: You are a kind and generous bunch. I’ll add my own piece of advice: At my first DC job, an older, wiser coworker told me to “put your head down and do the work.” That really stuck with me. Ever since, I’ve tried to hold to that. People respect and recognize a hard worker. It may not be immediate, but eventually it’ll happen. Just grind it out.
Alright, let’s move on. This week’s One Question is one I’m stealing (kinda) from Steve Schale, the Florida Democratic strategist who also writes a Substack newsletter that is worth reading. This week he mentioned that if a donor gave him $1 million to spend, he’d immediately fund focus groups in the 15-20 counties around the country that swung the most from voting for Biden to voting for Trump. Interesting. But it got me thinking: As a digital operative working to figure out how our field can BEST help win elections, what would I do with $1 million RIGHT NOW? What would you do? Invest in some new tech? Invest in data? Build a new email platform? Let me know!
One Quote
One Thought
The above quote is from Tech for Campaign’s 2024 Political Digital Advertising Report. The group’s biggest takeaway, as Politico notes, is that Democrats don’t do enough in off-years to persuade and engage voters. (Apparently Republicans are absolute geniuses at this, which is probably the first time I’ve heard that lol). But leaving that aside - the report has some interesting insights that are worth chewing over. For instance: the Trump campaign invested way more in GOTV even though they were outspent overall. And yes: too often we’re STILL given TV ads and told to run them on digital. Glad to see this is a Dem problem too. Persuasion is all about building relationships and trust, which is true in politics and in the corporate/commercial world. To do that, you have to treat each platform and audience like the individual snowflakes that they are. We could all do better. Just a thought!
P.S. Since we’re all in our “figuring out why the Dems lost so bad” era, let me add one more explanation to the mix: They simply got lazy. End of story. They thought all they had to do was message about how awful Trump was and they wouldn’t have to put in the actual work to wage an effective campaign. 🤷♀️🤷♀️🤷♀️
Who’s Doing What
—Iowa No-No
So………Joni Ernst. To be honest, I don’t know a whole lot about Sen. Joni Ernst or what she’s like as a person, but this seems like a rare misstep for her, right? If you don’t know what I’m talking about, the senator was heckled during a recent town hall about cuts to Medicaid. Someone shouted “people will die!” and Ernst responded with something along the lines of “Well we all are going to die.” Cue all of the backlash. THEN, for whatever reason, the senator chose to post a follow-up video that she filmed IN A CEMETERY with a fake apology. D’oh!
The content creator side of me appreciates that she had the guts to post a video response. What’s more, I understand the instinct to want to capitalize on a viral moment in order to get some love from the online right. I get it. She’s standing up to the radical left! But this…this was not the right play. I would never - ever - advise a candidate to post a video of themself mocking their own constituents. Not only is it not a good look, it’s literally handing ammunition to the other side. Like….why would you do that .If anything, I think we should view this as a cautionary tale. Social media is “so easy,” but it can also go very wrong very quickly. One bad post can tank your campaign. So be careful out there, folks. It’s a war zone.
—DOGE Dummies
Ok, you guys knew I was going to write about this eventually, right? Yes, I’m talking about all the DOGE checks fundraising emails. I don’t know who first came up with this genius idea, but everyone from Sens. Kevin Cramer and Tommy Tuberville to Matt Gaetz to the NRCC has gotten on the DOGE check fundraising bandwagon. I’m not trying to yuck anyone’s yum, but can you tell I’m not a fan? I don’t know what’s worse: that donors are falling for it or that we’re using this obvious scam as a fundraising tactic. I don’t know how this is a good long-term play for us. I really don’t. We’re all smart enough to know there’s about a 0.5% chance the government actually sends out DOGE checks, but we’re scaring people into believing that their check ain’t coming unless they chip in $10. Just gives me the ick.
If you are sending DOGE check emails for your clients, I would LOVE to hear your rationale. Email me at itsthedoomscroll@gmail.com.
Merch Shout-Out
This week’s merch shout-out goes to Sen. Kennedy for his “400,000 reasons” shirt. I’m not sure if this is a new item or if it’s been around awhile, but I just came across it this week. I like. It’s simple, totally on brand, and appeals to donors outside of Louisiana. Nice. Get yours here.
Oh and this week’s honorable mention goes to James Carville, because who doesn’t appreciate this gem:
Who’s Spending Where
Industry Watch
🤳 15 social media trends shaping 2025. I actually thought this was a good read. Two big takeaways I’ll call out:
It’s important to capture the business impact of your social media efforts. Go beyond vanity metrics. How is your social content actually achieving your goal - whether its traffic, conversions, video views, etc.
Speaking of metrics, shares are everything these days. Make content that’s SHAREABLE. And yes, even I’m still trying to figure this out.
2025-2026 Watch
Pres. Trump has reportedly already endorsed Rep. Dan Meuser…should he decide to run for governor in Pennsylvania.
Georgia State Sen. John Kennedy is running to be Lt. Governor.
State Rep. Eddie Andrews is running for governor of Iowa. (This primary should be an interesting one to watch).
Rep. Ralph Norman will announce soon whether or not he’s going to run for governor of South Carolina
The Grapevine
The team at Frontline Strategies got a visit from one of their most high-profile clients.
Courtney Weaver was on the Campaign Trend podcast talking about influencer marketing. Listen here.
John Hall is back with another Medium piece about the rev-share model. Here’s the crux of the problem:
In the Republican digital space, there is no standard process for suppressing existing donors from rev share prospecting efforts. Whether it’s a lack of trust between vendors or simply a reluctance to share suppression files, the result is the same: campaigns often end up paying top dollar to acquire donors they already have.
Got a tip for The Grapevine? Job announcement? Job opening? Email ‘em to me at itsthedoomscroll@gmail.com
Last But Not Least
From the other side of the aisle:
Axios reported this week that Democrats at the state level are being told to start using TargetSmart as their ad tech platform. Maybe it’s the free-market-loving capitalist in me talking, but this move seems totally nuts. Why box campaigns into one corner of an industry that’s constantly evolving and changing? And who says TargetSmart is the best in the biz - some members of the Association of State Democratic Committees who just learned what “programmatic ad buying” was five minutes before voting on this thing? Woof. Look, I’m not against letting the Dems dig their own hole, but wow. For once I agree with Rob Flaherty: This is the ultimate solution in search of a problem.
It also goes without saying…someone is going to get VERY rich from this nice little arrangement.
From the other side of the tracks:
Conservative credit card company (I didn’t even know those existed) Coign is out with a 30-second ad that it says was made entirely with AI. Per Axios, the company supposedly made the ad in half a day, which is bonkers for a TV spot. I mean…it’s not…bad?
Watch it here:
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