Hellooooo and welcome to another edition of Doomscroll. Thank you to President Joe Biden for giving me the gift of dropping out of the presidential campaign on my birthday. I would like to say I did a total switcharoo on today’s email to cover the fallout, but a) I didn’t have time for that and b) I just didn’t have time for that. So we’ll get to the president’s announcement and the GOP reaction next week! I’m sure by next Sunday we’ll have been through 12 million more news cycles worth covering anyway. WHO CAN KEEP UP THESE DAYS.
Peace, my friends. And buckle up!
One Question
What a week, ya’ll! Trust me, we’re going to get to some of the digital that came out of the RNC convention, but before we do that, let’s revisit last week’s One Question about how your digital strategies may be impacted by the assassination attempt on President Trump. There wasn’t a whole lot of specific answers about pivots or changes per se, but everyone who answered was pretty united in giving massive kudos to the Trump team for how they handled the crisis. Here are a couple of the comments I got:
I was very impressed with the proactive communication from Trump’s digital team. They let us know that fundraising is paused, shared a go fund me link with digital programs to help the victims’ families, and let us know when their fundraising resumed. It was the epitome of professionalism & crisis communications in a very chaotic moment.
Digital vendor who works with a lot of House & Senate clients here. During tragedies when we pause fundraising, us smaller accounts usually follow the lead of bigger accounts to start fundraising again. Kudos to the Trump team for the constant communication letting us know what they were doing, and when they were starting back up. It made our life much easier. I’ve been doing digital fundraising for almost 10 years, and I’ve never seen a Presidential program work with vendors & outside programs the way the Trump team has this cycle. Personally I detest Trump’s politics and think he’s terrible for the long term success of our party, but his digital team is definitely doing things the right way. If you’re reading this, great work Trump Digital!
Awesome. This week’s One Question is about ::drumroll:: Trump’s VP pick! Are you happy with J.D. Vance? How will it affect down-ballot races if at all? How will Vance perform as a fundraising surrogate and how will your campaigns try and capitalize off his pick for your own small-dollar fundraising?
Who’s Doing What
—What happened in Milwaukee…
I know A LOT of you were in Milwaukee this week - and I hope you all had a blast! It would be impossible to cover everything that came out of the convention digitally, but there were a few things that stood out to me worth highlighting. Overall, huge kudos to Maria and her team for running an awesome convention from a digital POV. And huge shout-out to the Trump team and RNC. Nicely, nicely done. Anywho, here are a few things that stood out.
I got an ungodly amount of fundraising emails from JD Vance - and mostly the same one over and over again. Par for the course.
Speaking of email, I was super impressed with the Trump team’s email program this week. Everything was well-timed and on-message. I saw some good, creative copywriting too, even though some of the emails were so basic and short. I saw one that literally said “Alert from Trump. I am Donald J. Trump and I will never surrender! I will always love you for supporting me. Unity. Peace. Make America Great Again.” And that was it. That was the email. Good reminder that we don’t always need to write essays or overthink our fundraising pitches. TBH some of the WinRed pages I saw left a lot to be desired, but when your churning out that many it’s bound to happen.
The custom, pro-Trump icons added to convention-related hashtags on Twitter were a cool touch. According to Mashable: On Thursday, July 18, some X users began to notice that custom icons were appearing next to certain pro-Trump hashtags. For example, when an X user posts the hashtag #MAGA, a small photo of Trump raising his fist after the shooting, automatically appears next to the hashtag in the post.
Also can we pause for a second and just appreciate how Trump announced his VP pick on Truth Social? I know it barely phases us today, but just a couple cycles ago, making that kind of huge announcement on social media would have been unheard of.
Was glad to see the RNC get into the social media influencer game. Granted: I’m not on TikTok and I am too much of an old to follow most of these youngin’s, but I’m glad they were there! Here’s some of the write-up from Axios:
Nearly 100 conservative influencers swamped the Republican National Convention here, creating content aimed at engaging conservatives who typically don't pay much attention to politics…The GOP sees a slate of new, popular conservative influencers and a flood of viral pro-Trump content on social media as a promising way to reach hesitant or untrusting voters — and convince them to cast a ballot in November. Republicans are adopting two political tools more associated with Democrats: social media influencers and get-out-the-vote organizations. "Welcome to the first-ever creator program at the Republican National Convention," said an email to participants from RNC marketing and digital director Maria Giannopoulos.
—Just gonna say it
I was mostly really pleased that people restrained themselves from fundraising last weekend. I know there were probably a few exceptions: this was one of them. An email from the Citizens Alliance of Pennsylvania went out too soon. It started hitting inboxes roughly 24 hours after the failed assassination attempt. Sure, there are some nice sentiments in there, but it wasn’t a good look, IMO. And since I’m already throwing shade I’ll go one step further: to use the Trump assassination as the hook, and then include donate buttons that say things like “donate $35 to cover the cost of gas,” is extra cringey. Tsk, tsk, CAP. Hope it was worth it.
—A for Effort?
Politico had a write-up LAST week about some pro-life groups attempting to counter the left’s abortion narrative with new video ads. Cycle after cycle, Republicans have been hit with first-person testimonials about how abortion restrictions put lives in danger or restrict basic human rights, etc etc. I mean, we all remember this doozy of an ad that re-elected Andy Beshear in Kentucky last year, right? It’s hard AF to combat something like that. I’m not sure these new videos totally cut it, if I’m being honest. They’re long and not so much testimonials as they’re stock footage strung together with some background narration.
I’m of the opinion that Republicans should not be afraid to lean into this as a campaign issue, but we need creative that actually works. I applaud Pro-life Partners for taking a crack at the whip, but I’m hoping our side finds a better, more compelling way to message on this heading into November. Let’s not get complacent with the idea that Joe Biden’s mental decline is going to elect every Republican from Long Island to Los Angeles so we’re off the hook when it comes to winning on abortion. Disagree? HMU over email.
—You don’t want to be Kristi Noem’s dog…or her social media accounts
I lol’ed at reports LAST week that South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem basically deleted her social media accounts. From MPR News:
Longstanding official social media accounts belonging to South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem appear to have been deleted without explanation.
The accounts on Facebook, Instagram and X, the site formerly known as Twitter, had reached hundreds of thousands of followers. As of Monday, links to them on the governor’s official website led to pages that said the accounts were no longer active.
Ok so I lol’ed and then groaned that there’s actually someone in this industry who gave this advice and thought it was a good idea. Ya’ll: Don’t do this. It solves nothing. As someone who’s worked in digital for 10+ years: If your candidate/official/etc goes through an embarrassing shit storm driven by undercover influencer campaigns and dogged by horrendous media interviews and bizarre videos about dentists in Texas…just change the subject. Reverse course. Do better. Don’t try to erase history. The internet lives forever and it’s insane we’re still reminding people of this in 2024. Whoever told her to delete accounts has a lot of explaining to do! Or here’s hoping there’s some kind of explanation that makes sense…
Merch Shout-Out
I love it when local candidates get into the merch game, so this week I’m highlighting Chris Faraldi, who ran - and won - his race Lynchburg City Council in Virginia and is being sued by his primary opponent over some contested votes. Or something. Anyway, check it out:
But what I love even more than the merch itself? The fundraising email he sent with it. Check out this copy:
10/10 love. Get your merch and help a brother out here.
Who’s Spending Where
The RNC’s ads caught my eye. Looks like they’re trying to counter the Project 2025 narrative with “Agenda 47.”
P2P
Industry Watch
The Institute for Free Speech is suing the FEC over requiring small-dollar donors to disclose their personal information. Here’s more:
The lawsuit seeks to make disclosure rules uniform by enjoining the Federal Election Commission (FEC) from applying federal disclosure requirements to contributions of $200 or less made through online fundraising platforms like WinRed or ActBlue.
Under current law, political committees are not required to disclose identifying information for donors who give $200 or less. However, when these same small-dollar donations are made through online platforms, the donor’s personal information must be reported to the FEC and posted online.
The plaintiffs fear that the public disclosure of their small-dollar political donations could lead to personal and professional repercussions, including potential impacts on their business relationships and increased pressure from other candidates for further donations, effectively chilling their ability to engage in anonymous political speech.
Something else that crossed my desk this week: The AI Political Archive. Color me…intrigued.
2024 Watch
This is where I make note of a few other things that caught my eye this week.
Congrats to CLF for an outstanding fundraising quarter! Read about it here.
The RGA recently released an ad attacking Josh Stein on sanctuary cities in the North Carolina gubernatorial race. Watch it here.
Facebook lifted its ad restrictions on Trump world. Read about it here.
The Grapevine
I’ll be honest: I haven’t been following this issue that closely, but apparently there was a big hearing on the Hill last week about coordinated efforts to boycott ads on conservative websites. The House Judiciary Committee put out a big report on it…Ben Shapiro testified about it… I plan to dig in more on this…just didn’t happen this week.
Speaking of things I’m not following that closely, but probably should be: Did anyone else see this Twitter thread about Biden’s DHS supposedly using influencer campaigns on the American public? Take a look for yourself and h/t to the loyal reader who shared it.
In other news, Push Digital’s Wesley Donehue was in Campaigns and Elections this week talking about how CTV is part of the digital ecosystem. SAY IT LOUDER! 10/10 agree. Read it here.
IQM’s Matthew Dybwad talks about bid shading in Campaigns and Elections. Read it here.
Last but not least: Looks like the NRSC is helping guarantee cheaper P2P sends for Senate campaigns… Cool, cool.
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:
I don’t know if any of you get the “Team Joe” weekly newsletter, but I do and I’m constantly seeing things in it that make me a little bit envious. This week? It’s the section about joining their National Online Engagement Training. Clicking on the RSVP button takes you to an events page that shows a bunch of online training events anyone can sign up for. Let’s just say…the RNC website…does not have this. At least not that I could find. :/
From the other side of the tracks:
Ok, as someone who loves reading about the messaging and marketing campaigns in the corporate world, I thoroughly enjoyed this piece in the WSJ. Here’s a snippet:
Oversharing can get messy on social media and first dates. United Airlines is betting there’s no such thing as too much information when it comes to flight delays and cancellations.
The airline doesn’t just tell you that your flight is running behind, like most carriers. It details why in frequently updated texts, emails and mobile alerts—and on the electronic sign at the gate. Even when it’s United’s fault. It can be both helpful and stressful. One traveler joked on X that United texts more than a teenager.
“We want you to know your flight is departing late because we needed to finish cleaning your plane,” the airline told passengers on a flight from Newark to Nashville delayed by 70 minutes.
United Chief Executive Scott Kirby says he’s on a mission to give passengers as much information as he’d get if he called the operations center himself.
Oversharing. When is it helpful and when is it annoying? I think campaigns could lean into this a bit more in their voter contact. But a key caveat: It has to be authentic (ugh that buzzword). I’m talking more authentic than “here’s what your donation will do! It will buy our interns pizza! Or another favorite: “We’re $2,501 short of our goal!” Everyone knows that’s a made-up number. I’m talking real authenticity here, like “I’m sending you yet another fundraising email because running for office is really, really expensive and I don’t have wealthy backers.” Maybe? Just an idea.
That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading! Did you like it? Consider forwarding to your friends!