Archive for 'Senate'

2010 Midterm Election Dates

Wednesday, April 28th, 2010 at 10:08 pm

2010 Midterm Election Dates and States

HOW TO WIN ANY ELECTION

	2010 Primary and Runoff Elections for Statewide offices and Congress Chronologically
Tuesday 19 January 2010	Massachusetts – Special Election Senate Class 1
Tuesday 2 February 2010	Illinois – Primary Florida – Special Primary House CD 19
Tuesday 2 March 2010	Texas – Primary
Tuesday 13 April 2010	Texas – Runoff Florida – Special Election House CD 19
Tuesday 4 May 2010	Indiana – Primary North Carolina – Primary Ohio – Primary
Tuesday 11 May 2010	Nebraska – Primary West Virginia – Primary
Tuesday 18 May 2010	Arkansas – Primary Kentucky – Primary Oregon – Primary Pennsylvania – Primary Pennsylvania – Special Election House CD 12
Saturday 22 May 2010 (tentative date)	Hawaii – Special Primary House CD 1
Tuesday 25 May 2010	Idaho – Primary
Tuesday 1 June 2010	Alabama – Primary Mississippi – Primary New Mexico – Primary
Tuesday 8 June 2010	California – Primary Iowa – Primary Maine – Primary Montana – Primary Arkansas – Runoff (if necessary) North Dakota – Primary New Jersey – Primary Nevada – Primary South Carolina – Primary South Dakota – Primary Virginia – Primary
Tuesday 22 June 2010	North Carolina – Second Primary South Carolina – Runoff Utah – Primary Mississippi – Primary Runoff
Tuesday 29 June 2010	South Dakota – Secondary Election
Tuesday 13 July 2010	Alabama – Runoff (if necessary)
Tuesday 20 July 2010	Georgia – Primary
Tuesday 27 July 2010	Oklahoma – Primary
Tuesday 3 August 2010	Kansas – Primary Michigan – Primary Missouri – Primary
Thursday 5 August 2010	Tennessee – Primary
Tuesday 10 August 2010	Colorado – Primary Connecticut – Primary Georgia – Primary Runoff
Tuesday 17 August 2010	Washington – Primary Wyoming – Primary
Tuesday 24 August 2010	Alaska – Primary Arizona – Primary Florida – Primary Oklahoma – Runoff
Saturday 28 August 2010	Louisiana – First Party Primary
Saturday 4 September 2010	Guam – Primary Election
Saturday 11 September 2010	Virgin Islands – Primary Election
Tuesday 14 September 2010	District of Columbia – Primary Delaware – Primary Massachusetts – Primary Maryland – Primary Minnesota – Primary New Hampshire – Primary New York – Primary Rhode Island – Primary Vermont – Primary Wisconsin – Primary
Saturday 18 September 2010	Hawaii – Primary
Saturday 2 October 2010	Louisiana – Second Party Primary (runoff)
Tuesday 2 November 2010	Alaska – General Election Alabama – General Election Arkansas – General Election Arizona – General Election California – General Election Colorado – General Election Connecticut – General Election District of Columbia – General Election Delaware – General Election Florida – General Election Georgia – General Election Guam – General Election Hawaii – General Election Iowa – General Election Idaho – General Election Illinois – General Election Indiana – General Election Kansas – General Election Kentucky – General Election Louisiana – Open General Election Massachusetts – General Election Maryland – General Election Maine – General Election Michigan – General Election Minnesota – General Election Missouri – General Election Mississippi – General Election Montana – General Election North Carolina – General Election North Dakota – General Election Nebraska – General Election New Hampshire – General Election New Jersey – General Election New Mexico – General Election Nevada – General Election New York – General Election Ohio – General Election Oklahoma – General Election Oregon – General Election Pennsylvania – General Election Rhode Island – General Election South Carolina – General Election South Dakota – General Election Tennessee – General Election Texas – General Election Utah – General Election Virginia – General Election Vermont – General Election Washington – General Election Wisconsin – General Election West Virginia – General Election Wyoming – General Election Northern Marianas – General Election
Tuesday 2 November 2010 (tentative date)	American Samoa – General Election Puerto Rico – General Election (no elections covered by this site) Virgin Islands – General Election
Tuesday 16 November 2010 (tentative date)	American Samoa – Runoff Virgin Islands – Run-off Election
Tuesday 30 November 2010	Georgia – General Election Runoff

Reach more Voters with Email

Friday, April 9th, 2010 at 10:17 am

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Simple one-to-one communication with your neighbor influences irresistibly. Why? Because neighbors discuss what they think, how they feel , and are eager to explore solutions to change what they believe needs to be changed.

In political campaigns, the fundamental effort begins with using existing Voter Records, available from the local county Board of Elections, which, depending on the county, includes resident information such as:

name, address, phone number, party affiliation, and when they last voted.

What if you could access up to 800+ additional data points per voter including email addresses that are double-opt in verified which allow for greater engagement of targeted voters with specific messages ?

How powerful would your outreach be? How much easier would it be to raise funds ? Win the primary?

When competitive campaigns are aggregating intelligence on your campaign they will only find the broad message expenditures and will never realize that on a daily, unlimited basis, all through the campaign you have been communicating directly with the party base, center, left and right – as well as independents, with targeted policy talking points.

You will grow your organization, increase its political impact and “get-out-the vote” (GOTV) faster with a lower cost.

This is vital for candidates running in primary elections with precious time and money to get the job done.

The outcome of engaging targeted likely voters in their neighborhoods by merely using the door to door approach and conventional voter records, resulted in Democrats winning Minnesota and Ohio in the 2008 election through the recruitment of 10 additional Democratic voters per precinct.

In the 2010 election cycle, with many seats up for grabs across many states, this unique political tool offered only by Steel Media is the winning edge.

Request a state by state listing of the number of voters you can access through the form below exclusively through Steel Media.

All information will be held in the strictest of confidence, and your privacy is 100% assured.

Here is some stuff that nobody tells you about how to make email marketing really successful.

I’m assuming that you already know that Obama raised millions of dollars using email, and continues to do so. I’m also assuming that you are aware that emails from Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid , Madeline Albright, have all gone out telling voters to apply pressure to their Congresional leaders to pass the Health Care reform bill and to send money in to the DNC for the upcoming midterm election cycle.

Trust me email marketing works – but you have to know these four things to use it effectively – otherwise you might as well be whistling Dixie.

Stuff Nobody tells you about Email marketing and How it Really Works

by Matthew Maginley , Media Consultant

Its not about the size of the list that will raise funds or even win an election . Sure it would be great to have the email of every voter in your state – assuming every voter in your statae HAS email – but even if you had the emails of just a percentatge of the voters that actully show up to vote – well, that would make a differnce , wouldn’t it?

It is the activity that goes on with the list that makes a difference .

These are the 4 factors that you must optimize in order to have effective email campaigns:

1) DELIVERABILITY

You’ve used Twitter, FaceBook , even bought a list, and now you are ready to send your message. But depending on the reputation of the ISP sending out the email, you may only have 40% of the email actually arrive at the recipients mail box, or winds up getting filtered out.

2) OPEN RATE

Out of the 40% of the list that actually arrived, you have to consider what percentage of the mail gets opened. This has everything to do with the subject header, and one other hidden factor that most email marketers overlook ( I’ll get to that in my next post. ) But for now – know there is a way to optimize this.

3) CLICK THROUGH RATE

Everybody knows about click through rate and again, most marketers try to get the reader to take an action to click through to their offer. There is a way to optimize this as well because this all relates to your body copy. Get this wrong and you might as well not have bothered with sending out the email in the first place.

4) CONVERSION

Last but not least is the conversion rate of the page you are sending traffic to. Naturally you can increase the conversion by tweaking the page and again this is where the rubber meets the road.

I will be covering this topic in more detail in the days ahead, so stay tuned. Also stay tuned for a private one on one interview that I will be conducting with one of the leading political email marketing companies.

If you would like to be invited – fill in the form on the home page. Space is limited so do this now- before the opposition finds out about it.

Ten Ways to Blow it Online in 2010

Thursday, March 25th, 2010 at 10:57 am

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Ten Ways to Blow It Online in 2010

By Colin Delany

In politics, winning is everything. But why obsess about winning when epic failure is so much more exciting?

Here are ten excellent ways to completely blow it online in 2010.

1. Start Late
Don’t want online support? No problem—just wait until the last minute to get rolling. Sure, some campaigns occasionally grow into Internet behemoths overnight, but most have to start slo-o-o-owly and build up over time. Like a retirement account, almost every list starts tiny before it gets big enough to matter, usually growing just a little bit every day. Think of online outreach as siege warfare, not the accumulation of many individual triumphs over a long period of time, not through a single bold stroke. Start recruiting now!

2. Steer Clear of E-Mail
In a world of Facebook and Twitter, who needs e-mail? Well, political campaigns do, at least if they want to tap much of the Internet’s potential to persuade people to donate money, knock on doors and make phone calls. Just ask Barack Obama, whose campaign relied on e-mail more than any other tool to communicate with supporters and motivate them to donate both cash and time.

He and other successful online campaigners still use e-mail because it works. Just one example: Of the $500 million Obama raised online, roughly two-thirds came directly via someone clicking on a “donate now” link in a campaign e-mail. Of course, Obama had a couple million friends on Facebook and MySpace, but he ended the 2008 cycle with over 13 million addresses on his e-mail list, and by Election Day its members had received roughly one billion individual messages from his campaign. Though not much of a recruiting tool (except when someone sends-to-a-friend), e-mail absolutely excels at building and maintaining relationships online.

3. Ignore the Bloggers
Bloggers in their pajama-clad ranks can be annoying, particularly for political professionals who aren’t too pleased to have amateurs poaching on their turf. But who cares? Political blogs get read by the very activists and donors candidates usually need to reach.

While getting mentioned in a national-level blog can make a splash, state- and local-level campaigns should pay particular attention to local political bloggers. They’re more likely to focus on a legislative or congressional race, and you can help them fill their precious pixels by pitching a story idea or a guest article from your candidate.

Also, since your target often isn’t the actual blogger, but his or her readers, consider advertising on relevant blogs—blog ads can be very cheap, particularly for local or niche sites. And bloggers do tend to notice who buys space on their sites.

4. Don’t Use Google Ads
Speaking of online advertising, we all know that it doesn’t work—except when it does. In fact, Google Ads are a perfect match for most candidates in 2010, for two basic reasons. First, they’re highly targetable, and second you only pay when someone actually clicks on an ad. Google Ads are particularly effective as a list-building tool, sometimes yielding a four- or five-fold return on invest- ment, measured in donations.

Their targeting ability can be a real help, since you can not only zero in on your district but also aim different messages at different audiences depending on the content they’re reading or searching online. Campaigns frequently run Google Ads using their candidate’s name and that of their opponent as keywords, for instance, while a higher-level Google Ad blitz might target dozens or hundreds of different keyword/landing page combinations. Even when someone doesn’t click on a Google Ad, it’s still sitting there on the page as a branding element, complete with your message and link.

5. Avoid Facebook, MySpace and YouTube
E-mail may be key to maintaining connections with your existing supporters and donors, but online social networks like Facebook and MySpace are great places to fish for new ones. Your own campaign web page is a start, but encourage supporters to spread the word, too—each of your Facebook or MySpace friends is a potential recruiting hub within their own social circles. YouTube has a potential double effect, since you can use it as both a free video hosting site and as a social network in which to look for support.

As you connect with people on Facebook or MySpace, though, do try to move them onto your main activist list as much as possible. Hard political experience has shown that a good e-mail message to the list can have a response rate 10 or more times higher than a request sent over an online social network.

6. Ignore All Those Online Critics
Hostile bloggers, Twitterers and YouTubers can be a real thorn in a campaign’s side, particularly since you never know who’s listening to what they’re saying. But short of a comprehensive assassination scheme (not recommended), you’re stuck with ‘em. So what should a campaign do?

The best answer to a wave of negative online content is often to try to “flood the zone” with targeted information of your own, while also reaching out to individuals in the opposition to see if they can be brought around. For instance, if unflattering YouTube clips are dogging your candidate, post a bunch of your own videos on the same or a related topic, not only to counter the hostile messages directly but also to dilute them in search results. While you may not be able to turn an enraged blogger into a bosom buddy, a few e-mails behind the scenes could shift him or her from angry to at least neutral (a little access to the candidate wouldn’t hurt either).

7. Treat Your Supporters Like ATMs
Yes, the Internet can be a great source of political money, particularly when a campaign can aggregate small donations from a big list of individual supporters. But even the most enthusiastic donors may turn off the spigot if they get the feeling that all a campaign cares about is their money. Unlike bank machines, online donors give cash because they truly care about the candidate or the issues. Taking them for granted can be a quick way to convince them to take their donations elsewhere.

Taking a page again from Obama’s online playbook, try to mix your fundraising messages with other appeals or even with e-mails that are primarily informative. You might ask supporters to view a particular video and post it to their own blogs or Facebook pages, something that will help the campaign but that won’t cost your friends a dime. When you do ask for money directly, have a clear “value proposition” that explains how you’ll be using the funds and why it matters. Don’t forget to follow up with the results! People are a lot more likely to donate again if they feel that their past gifts have made a difference.

8. Twitter! Twitter! Twitter!
Not to pick on Twitter in particular, because it can be a great way to reach journalists, bloggers and individual activists, but it’s just one tool. Despite the hype, a relatively small percentage of people have embraced microblogging so far. Serious Twitter outreach can be ridiculously time consuming, potentially taking resources away from other vital functions, and needs to be balanced with all of a campaign’s communications needs.

Though useful for outreach, for instance, Twitter isn’t going to take the place of a website, an e-mail-based communications program or online video—though it can be a great way to bring some attention to them all. Put in the proper context, Twitter can be an online promoter’s close (but not exclusive) friend.

9. Here, There, Everywhere—But Not Integrated
Twitter’s over-hyped role in online outreach brings us to the real nut of the matter: If you want to fail, go scattershot all the way. But for online political success, try a different tack: Make sure the various pieces of your Internet presence work together.

For instance, do your online videos or your guest posts on political blogs refer back to your main website? Does your site clearly steer people toward opportunities to sign up and get involved? Once people are on your list, are you asking them to help spread the word through the online (and offline) channels they use most? Done correctly, the various parts of your online outreach will reinforce each other and the rest of your old-world communications work.

More broadly, online and offline campaigns should work together. For instance, many campaigns build their online activist lists at real-world events, taking advantage of every opportunity to sign up a new supporter. Don’t forget yard signs! Plaster your website address on every piece of material that leaves your office, even as you think of creative ways to put your list of online supporters to work in the real world.

10. Who Needs a Strategy? I Already Have a Website!
Repeat after me: A website is not a strategy. For that matter, nor is any other tool. Unless you know why you’re using a piece of technology and what results you want to get, it’s not likely to do you much good. Differences in levels of success between one campaign and another usually come down to how they use the tools, not which ones they choose to emphasize.

For instance, Barack Obama didn’t do much online that was entirely new, mainly employing technologies that have been around for a couple of election cycles, but his campaign almost always used new media with a clear plan, constant testing and ruthless efficiency. A little “strategery” can go a long, long way in online politics. In Obama’s case, it went a long way toward putting him in the White House.

Colin Delany is founder and editor of Epolitics.com, which focuses on the tools and tactics of Internet-based political advocacy, and a communications consultant. His recent publications, “Learning from Obama” and “How Candidates Can Use the Internet to Win in 2010,” can be downloaded free at Epolitics.com.

John McCain on Health Care Bill, Earmarks, $100 million Connecticut hospital, and more deal

Thursday, March 25th, 2010 at 10:29 am

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Senator John McCain (R) Arizona mentions a $100 million hospital that is to be built in Connecticut as part of the recently passed Health Care bill. He basically makes the point that when the American people see earmarks in legislation necessary to get the Health Care bill passed they question the process.

If you need to reach ALL of the voters in YOUR state for a political, or issue campaign, here is some important information about using e-mail based on voter records, and 800 + data points on behavior and lifestyle.

Full Name:
Email:
Company:
Phone :
Street Address:
City:
State:
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