Big Jolly Politics

politics in Harris County and Texas

Interview with Cindy Siegel and her vision for HCRP

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Cindy Siegel was kind enough to meet and discuss her plans and vision for the Harris County Republican Party if reelected chair.  To prepare, I reached out to strong Republican voters who aren’t otherwise politically active to hear what they think about the party and what concerns they carry. Their perspectives helped shape the second half of the interview. The structure that follows starts with background questions about party operations and then moves to issues raised by these “outside the loop” rank-and-file Republicans.

How has the party changed since you were first elected? 

Cindy focused on how the party was in a defeated, disorganized posture after the 2020 general election and the subsequent improvement.  She noted the increase in enthusiasm and energy that wasn’t present in December 2020.  The party was at risk of not being able to make the rent payments for headquarters.  This was contrasted with the objective state of the party currently, better finances, more precinct chairs.  She also noted plans that were implemented to improve the party such as an adopt-a-precinct program and extensive precinct chair training.

What do you look for in a candidate?

At the outset, I noted that the party can’t exclude a candidate from placing a R behind their name, so the focus of the answer needs to be towards when recruiting candidates how are they evaluated, rather than a democrat saying they are republican and running in our primary.

With that restriction on the answer, she replied that a candidate needs to be one who can represent the party and who believes in our platform.  Once that has happened, she looks for three things:

1)      Fire in the belly. They want to win.

2)      Have a good support system.

3)      What’s your path to victory.

What is our ceiling/floor?

Races will be on the margin, anyone who thinks county wide will be 60/40 is not dealing with reality.  Individual precincts and subdivisions can have wider margins, but county wide is going to be small margins either way deciding who wins. We will win vote by vote and everyone voting down ballot.

How much coordination do you want with outside groups?

She noted the prohibition on coordinating with superPACs.  She then noted the county party doesn’t want to duplicate efforts.  The county needs to use funds they have effectively, and when outside groups have similar interests it’s better to focus on areas where the outside groups aren’t focusing.  Also, the county party is data driven and has proven methods to contact strong R voters and get them to the polls.  That’s a more efficient use of party finances that isn’t duplicated by outside groups.

 

The interview then turned to topics brought up by strong R voters outside the loop and issues they saw as concerns.

 

What is the best way to grow the party?

This was the longest answer she gave, and the excerpt below doesn’t cover the entire depth of her answer.  She started with noting the party is data driven which allows for an evaluation what we can do better.  To exist in the today’s political environment, we have to be data driven.

She gave an example of how the data is being used noting  over half of the new voters are Hispanic/Latino under the age of 45 and we have to assume those voters are brought in by Trump, and make efforts to reach out to those voters.  Hispanic values should be a natural fit, we need to reach out to this voting base to grow the party.  To that extent we have formed a Latino Leadership Council with representatives from various Hispanic Republican groups to coordinate our efforts to reach the Hispanic voter.

She noted the party isn’t unconcerned about different demographic blocks – black, Asian, younger voters and is working to reach these voters.  For example, the party has a young leadership committee to develop campaign workers and to bring in younger candidates and voters.

She then pivoted to a blend of tactics and strategy noting the party needs to take notice of the divide in the Democrat party and take advantage of the divide and recruit younger members who are disaffected by the Democrat party.

She continued the party targets races that we think are  flippable, we look for clubs and groups in these target races.  The next step is where we have a void to have an existing  club or group help get a group started there.

We are also actively recruiting precinct chairs or leads (adopt-a-precinct) in the target races.

What are the major issues to focus on?

She named crime, education, infrastructure (where did the flood bond money go). Then she addressed the current efforts the county party is taking to generate involvement on these issues noting they have created a template for engaging voters by having community conversations on issues in areas that are not traditionally Republican areas.  She said she wants the takeaway to be people who attend to understand Republican policies and feel like they received something from the conversation.

How do we meet moderates and pull them towards us?

To be fair, this was scattered throughout other answers and compiled here.

Good candidates and good public policies.  She named safe neighborhood, job opportunities, not being taxed out of home, kids are getting a great education.  If there’s a major storm event your family will be safe.  If you get divorced, you need a speedy resolution.

How do we keep extreme positions in primaries keep from moderating and making November wins possible?

She answered talking about issues that are a concern for all of us.  How we communicate isn’t always the best.  Our messaging may not resonate if you are not core group.  For example, rather than just say, “we stand for law and order”, say,” I want everyone’s family to be safe whether you live River Oaks, Pasadena, or 5th Ward.”

Hope After a Disastrous Election

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The election yesterday were a disaster for republicans. No two ways about it.  However, we shouldn’t be terribly surprised by the results.  Harris County is undeniably a blue county, and the Republicans followed the same model as the past few cycles insofar as how the county party campaigned.  Casting blame does no good.  We need to learn from the election, and make necessary course corrections going forward.

Messaging and Freedom

This cycle was a very odd cycle regarding messaging.  Both parties have a variation of a freedom message.  Normally Republicans have a message of freedom to (religion, speech, economic issues, personal autonomy), and Democrats have a freedom from (discrimination, poverty via social services and economic regulation, climate harm).  This cycle the messaging was reversed.  We argued a freedom from message (crime, inflation) and democrats argued a freedom to (abortion, personal autonomy.)  We saw the predictable results.  The overall political atmosphere nudged the needle right (3-5 point defeats versus 7-9 points last cycle), but only the criminal court races saw any extra movement based on messaging.

Lessons from the Disaster

First and foremost, don’t blame Cindy or HCRP for the disaster.  She/they made the right call on paper insofar as how to message.  It didn’t work, but that doesn’t mean poor decision making occurred.  I have been critical of HCRP in the past, but this isn’t a time they deserve the blame.  We do need to make changes in strategy, tactics, and messaging in the future, but again, on paper, they made the right decision strategy wise.

However, tactics HCRP uses in future elections need to change.  The centralized running judicial campaigns through HCRP is a mistake; and hopefully we now can undisputedly see that the model doesn’t work.  It didn’t work for Simpson, and it didn’t work now.  It’s a bad model. (Solutions in the What Can We Do section below.)

Second, don’t draw the conclusion that abortion is a losing argument.  That’s an easy incorrect conclusion to draw from this cycle with the Dems pushing abortion as their issue.  However, historically, whenever the Supreme Court acts against abortion the left always has a transient bump in support.  Before Covid the only time the abortion rate increased after the immediate aftermath of Roe was a response to the Carhart partial birth abortion ban.  We should have expected a similar bump in democrat support as a reaction to Dobbs, and with the states allowed to make their own laws this is only amplified.  However, it is a transient bump in support.

Also we didn’t engage on the issue.  We abandoned the space to the Democrats, and unsurprisingly they ran wild with the issue to good effect.  Simple engagement on the issue would have blunted some of the impact.  A well conceived strategy of engagement dealing with both the fundamental arguments as well as noting the medical industry’s pushing of abortion like what happened with us – doctors brought up abortion at 31 weeks 6 days on their own motion and persisted until it stressed Rochelle into preterm labor – provides an effective blunting effect to voters who view the issue in the abstract.

A third lesson is red meat issues meant to energize the farther right base doesn’t work in general elections. A corollary is we need more moderate candidates for the premier races.  A focus on CRT was effective in the school board races.  However, that’s a race where only the more engaged segment of the voting population participates in the election.  In the general election red meat issues don’t play well with the general public.  It may work in some specific state house districts, but overall it’s not an effective message for general election purposes. CRT, voter fraud, and the like aren’t winners.

If there is legitimate suspicion of voter fraud then that needs to be carefully evidenced and addressed outside of election windows.  I’m not suggesting we don’t address the problem, but we need to do so outside of when it will become associated with a Democrat and media pushed narrative of conspiracy theory and distract from messaging.  That’s not always going to be possible, but we need to aim to act in a manner that the issue minimizes our messaging.

What Can We Do

Lessons are useless if we don’t learn and adapt, so this leads to the question of what can we do going forward.

As an initial measure we need to talk about solutions.  The freedom from message this cycle didn’t resonate particularly well because we didn’t offer meaningful or detailed solutions to the problems we identified.  Even the hire more law enforcement officers  refrain doesn’t get around the message of soft on crime judges release criminals back onto the streets.  More law enforcement officers doesn’t address the soft on crime judges issue, and voters could see the disconnect.  Detailed solution oriented messaging not only serves a constructive purpose, but it also allows for an acknowledge and pivot type of response.

If the democrats want to use Uvalde as a call for gun control, acknowledge the horror of the situation, and then pivot to a solution that doesn’t involve gun control – something like adding door bolts on the floor to classrooms so shooters cannot enter the classrooms in an active shooter situation.  This steers the conversation away from red flag laws and is a simple, inexpensive, solution to address the problem.  Plus, it compels the democrats to agree with us, or look like they are objecting to reasonable, inexpensive, measures to increase school safety.

A second change we need to make is use a fundamentally different model for campaign type activities in the general elections.  HCRP generally doesn’t have a good presence in persuadable blue areas of the county.  Groups like TARC and individual candidates will appear, but HCRP, by and large, is absent from events in/around Sharpstown as an example while the Southwest Democrats are always present.  Abandoning the space to the democrats doesn’t help persuade voters to our vision.

Right now, not only do we lose the opportunity to spread our message, but it also is bad optics looking like we don’t care about this part of the county.  A focus on presence and we care will help move the general needle in our direction, and frees up candidates to tailor their message to how they want to campaign leading to a cross pollination of messaging along the margins of the message campaign.  The cross pollination will end up appealing to more voters as different iterations of what we believe will resonate with different segments of the voting population.

Thirdly, we need to engage in visible public good.  Nothing speaks to voters more than actively making their lives better in a tangible way.  This can be done either directly by having HCRP directly engage in public service activities, or indirectly by having known republicans engaging in public service activities and HCRP having a presence and/or providing support in the background.  The former has direct benefit, and the latter has indirect “I don’t like republicans, but XXX is a good guy” effect.  Both ways break down barriers, and they provide synergy to a solution oriented messaging campaign.

HCRP, or Individuals will Define the Future

It bears repeating, this cycle’s results shouldn’t be blamed on Cindy or HCRP.  Messaging wise they made the right call on paper.  It just didn’t work out.  We need to focus on the future.  With Commissioner’s Court now firmly in Democrat control we have no effective check to the Democrat’s power.  We also have no functional mouthpiece to carry our message.  The question becomes how do we promote our message going forward.

The void is either going to be filled by HCRP, or individuals will emerge who have a message and that becomes the Republican message.  Obviously, it’s better if HCRP becomes the message bearer given the organization, resources, and status of HCRP.  However, it will require HCRP to not only show a willingness to change course, but also to be open to constructive criticism and insist on a calmer level of demeanor in public discourse.

We don’t have any effective power to shape the direction the county is going to follow for the next four years.  With the disastrous showing yesterday it’s unlikely that we will have meaningful influence on the municipal elections next year.   To begin to gain ground we have to focus on generally moving the needle to the right.  That requires a change in message and strategy philosophy.

Cindy has done a good job getting HCRP structurally better organized, and with candidate recruitment.  If she can show a path forward that is different from what we have been doing and that HCRP has learned lessons from this cycle then she’s a good choice to lead the party going forward.  It’s a natural building off of the structural improvements she’s achieved.

For all our sakes, I hope she does.

A Pathway To Recovering From the Election Disaster

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We’ve had two wipe outs that have fundamentally changed the party’s status in Harris County.  With 2020 a Presidential general election the odds of successfully recovering losses are slim-to-none.  With that in mind, what can the party do to recover from the past two cycles?  The short answer is to accept we don’t control our fate for 2020 and act to improve our standing rather than think we can reverse the tide in two years.

What the numbers tell us.

The early voting totals paint a grim picture for the county.  Derek Ryan voting data after the first weekend can be used to glean information regarding how deep the problem runs.  The 310th Judicial District is used for this calculation since that race was in the low average range for Republican votes most of the judicial races saw.

Using Derek Ryan voter data and the final election results we can calculate a range of how general election voters with no primary history voted.

The Derek Ryan data (through the early voting weekend) showed:

Voting History

R only: 32.3, R last primary: 0.7%

D only: 27.2%, D last primary: 1.4%

No Primary History: 30.0%

No Previous History: 5.5%

From here we assume that the Republican only and Republican last primary voted Republican this time, and Democrat only and Democrat last primary once again voted the same way.  That gives a total of 33% Republican vote and 28.6% Democrat vote based on the core party voters.  This also establishes a floor for the general election vote. 

In order to calculate the remaining values we have to make an assumption on the likely distribution of either the general election only voting history or the first time only voting history.  Since the new voters are likely combination of 1) young voters 2) newly registered voters and 3) voters who moved into the state the new voters likely break very significantly for the Democrats.  To try and get a range value we can use 80% Democrat and 90% Democrat to establish the boundries.  The math so far is:

Republican: 33.0%, Democrat: 28.6%

New Voter allocation: Republican 1.1% high, 0.55% low

New Voter allocation: Democrat 4.95% high, 4.4% low

Total:

Republican 33.55 – 34.1%

Democrat 33.0 – 33.55%

So far so good, the core party voters appear to be similar in number.  And that’s where the problem lies.  The general election results were:

Republican: 43.83

Democrat: 56.17

which gives a general election only voting split of

Republican: 9.73 – 10.28%

Democrat: 22.66 – 23.17%

That’s a 2.25:1 Democrat to Republican ratio or 70-30 Democrat break for the general election only voters.  In a nutshell, that’s where we lost the election.

Why did we do so badly with general election voters?

Now that we know where we went wrong the first question to try to answer is why. 

Straight Ticket Voting

Some have suggested straight party voting is the cause.  The argument has some superficial support in that a whopping 76.44% of votes cast were straight ticket.  However, for straight ticket voting to be the cause of the poor performance it would have to follow that voters wouldn’t have voted the down ballot races.  The evidence doesn’t support that conclusion.  With the Senate race, the under vote was 0.99%, and with the 310th the under vote was 3.00%.  That’s a difference of 24,000 votes in a 146,000 vote difference race (310th.)  Straight ticket voting may have inched the race in favor of the Democrats, but it didn’t make a meaningful difference.

The Cruz Millstone

Ted Cruz is a liability in county politics.  Just how bad is he for the county party?  Take this piece of information:

Straight Ticket Republican: 410,465

Total votes not straight ticket: 287,389

Ted Cruz not straight ticket vote tally: 88,248

He only gained 30.7% of the available not straight ticket vote.  Remember from earlier that the Republicans only gained 30.0% of the general election only voters.  That means Cruz was not able to achieve any appreciable amount of ticket splitting voters.  Achieving some appreciable ticket splitting was possible as Bush (40.7%) Hagar (42.5%) and Abbott (51.9%) election results showed.  Essentially, Cruz is as bad as it gets for the county party. 

Lack of Party Leadership

Recently I was asked who is in control of the county party.  I couldn’t give an answer.  We have Simpson as the titular head.  We have the slates. We have the anti-Simpson crowd.  The issues and infighting with the three have been ongoing for quite some time and there’s no point in belaboring those issues with analysis.

Separate from the above, some individuals have clout.  Bill King looked to be well positioned to make another serious attempt to take out Mayor Turner in the upcoming election.  Now that Tony Buzbee has entered the race it essentially assures a runoff and leaves it as an open question as to who will ultimately challenge turner in the runoff.  To some extent both King and Buzbee will have some influence as they are the two major alternatives to Turner.  Jim Bingham has significant influence in Shapstown and would be a strong candidate for the District J city council seat since Councilman Laster is term limited out this cycle.  Then there’s the Harris County Department of Education which has Republicans in office and therefore have some influence.    

Infighting

Then we have the problem of the overall party infighting that’s going on.  Outside of the question of who will be the party chair the whole moderate versus far right fighting has become ugly enough that it’s having a detrimental effect on the party.  Let me be clear – the party only succeeds when we have a big tent.  Right now neither side in the infighting can lay claim to taking the high road on this issue.  However, if blame is to be cast, it’s the “get out of my party” element of the moderates who do the most damage.  Before the Trump voters started identifying as republicans the far right wing of the party (self identified TEA party as a proxy) was around one third of the party electorate statewide.  That would have translated into 30ish seats in the house if Republican makeup of the legislature matched Republican electorate.  The Freedom Caucus numbered 11.

The whole Empower Texans is trying to take over the state cry is nothing more than histrionics.  The far right segment of the Republican Party is simply trying to obtain representation in line with their percentage of the electorate.  No harm there; and the bitter attacks against that segment of the electorate doubtless cost us seats.  We may disagree in March, but need to remember we are closer to each other than to the average democrat.  That’s just as true for Sarah Davis as it is for the Freedom Caucus.

What can we do?

Identifying the problem and causes aren’t worth the time and effort if we don’t also look to what we can do to turn things around.

It won’t happen next cycle

The first thing to do is assess what can be done for next cycle.  The overall atmosphere isn’t going to be conducive to erasing the gains.  The top of the ballot drag will continue.  Texas Politics Project job approval data for October 2018 shows that Cruz is significantly more disliked than Cornyn (37% disapprove strongly versus 25% disapprove strongly) so there’s the potential for the Senate race to be less of a drag on the county.  However, the county will have to contend with Trump on the top of the ballot (40%) so the lack of coattails at the top of the ballot will remain next cycle.  Senator Cornyn is a great contrast to Trump insofar as the county party is concerned, and to the extent that the party apparatus can need to appeal to him to campaign in the County.  He has a long history of reaching out to Hispanic voters and can be a positive factor.  However, Trump will still be too much to overcome coattail wise and the best the county can hope for is to blunt the negative effect.

Understand we don’t control the message

It doesn’t matter what message we put out.  We don’t control the message, and the county party needs to stop trying for now.  Any effort to push a theme such as “Harris County Works” is simply a waste of resources.  Trump will suck the oxygen out of the room big picture wise.  It’s going to be far more productive to focus on issues rather than message.  To that end, the party needs to stay in the background in the upcoming mayor and city council elections and let the candidates shape the message.  Bill King did an excellent job of taking on Mayor Turner last time and Tony Buzbee is capable of dwarfing any effort the county party can muster message proliferation wise.  The party needs to let them run their races and focus on logistical support if asked. 

Transition to a caretaker party chair

Simpson does a great job fundraising, but the election results don’t have anything to show for his significant fundraising prowess.  He is once again going to have a target on him should he seek reelection.  If the county party is going to try to coalesce around a leader it’s going to have to be someone else.  At the same time, if Simpson is ousted in a bitter contested election it’s not going to be possible to rally around the new chair.  The existing battle lines are too entrenched.  To that end, it’s best for either a negotiated arrangement for the next party chair, or in the alternative a caretaker chair until the behind the scenes infighting can resolve. 

A negotiated resolution is preferable as it would allow Simpson to focus on his prolific fundraising while someone else can focus on the messaging/unification aspects of the party.  It would serve as détente rather than solution, but even détente is a step in the right direction which could hopefully lead to a future power structure where the parts were working where they are better suited rather than against each other.

With the players having such a long and bitter recent history détente is likely not possible.  To that end, a caretaker party chair who could act more as a mediator/felicitator and resource for candidates may be the better route to go party chair wise.  The players have to learn to work together again, or one side needs to win.  As long as the battle is fought intraparty on the county party level the ability to focus on improving our position is in the background.

Focus on issues rather than message

Right now we aren’t in a position to erase gains next cycle or to advance a message.  The next best course of action is to focus on issues.  By focusing on issues the party gains in two ways.  First, the party transitions into an entity that does good in the eyes of the electorate.  We are the party of personal and fiscal responsibility, but we are also the party of social conservatives who believe in lifting others out of poverty rather than simply issuing a handout.  The city has significant problems that need to be addressed.  By focusing in on the issues the problems cause the party transitions away from Trump Wall Bombast to hey, they’re the ones articulating solutions to the problems we’re facing.  The second benefit is that the issues will come to us. The next mayoral election is going to be a contrast in vision.  The contrast highlights the issues, and we take advantage of the mayoral race issues to organize our articulated stances.

This doesn’t mean that we abandon the traditional social conservative values such as abortion as an example. Address abortion from a practical stance while the legislature and PACs fight the fight on the overall big issue.  Let the right to life groups push abortion big picture activities.  The county party can push the hospital district to make sure they are not improperly excluding applicants (which has become a huge problem lately) to ensure that the destitute have appropriate medical care.  The county party can push to make sure that WIC is sufficiently funded to assist if the economy worsens.  Both of these activities bear on abortion in that if expectant mothers in crisis pregnancies are satisfied they have the necessary support for the baby they are more likely to choose life.

This blueprint of practical action in support of others fighting the big picture battle can be carried out on a myriad of social issues. This, along with the aforementioned apolitical issues that will arise in the citywide races, gives the county party a great opportunity to change the local image within the overall toxic environment.

Addressing issues on the practical rather than message level makes the county party seem reasonable and like they are doing good.  Then outreach becomes significantly easier.  Then it’s a lot harder for the voters to simply vote democrat because of the overall toxic environment.  We don’t take the county back in 2020, but we do make inroads, which is the best we can do for now.

Discuss the HCRP slates with the Memorial West Republican Women

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From the Memorial West Republican Women Facebook page:

Don’t miss the April general meeting! Monday, April 2, 2018. Guest speaker: MWRW member, Mary Sergesketter, and the topic is “The Influencers, the Candidates and the Voters….a discussion about the slates in Harris County.” This is a program you will not see anywhere else!

10:30 A.M. Social, 11:00 A.M. Program, 12:00 P.M. Lunch (optional). Please make your reservation for lunch by Thursday, March 29th via email.

Ninfa’s on Memorial. 14737 Memorial Dr, Houston, TX 77079 (click the link for directions)

This should be a very interesting meeting and might even get me out of hibernation to be there. Mary has been around the HCRP for a long time and will be able to discuss the various slates intimately. I’ll be interested to hear her thoughts on using the slate mechanism to get better candidates on the whole, instead of having a November candidate slate full of holes because of niche issues.

And speaking of slates, there is a small one called Katy Christian Magazine whose publisher doesn’t understand the law regarding political advertising. As you know, political advertising is highly regulated by the State of Texas. Here are the specific laws taken directly from a Texas Ethics Commission ruling against another local slate in 2011:

  1. “Political advertising” is defined, in relevant part, as a communication supporting or opposing a candidate for nomination or election to a public office that in return for consideration, is published in a newspaper, magazine, or other periodical. ELEC. CODE § 251.001(16).
  2. The rate charged for political advertising that is printed or published may not exceed the lowest charge made for comparable use of the space for any other purposes. ELEC. CODE 255.002(b).
  3. In determining amounts charged for comparable use, the amount and kind of space or time used, number of times used, frequency of use, type of advertising copy submitted, and any other relevant factors shall be considered. ELEC. CODE 255.002(c).
  4. The documents at issue supported the election of candidates to public office. Therefore, they are political advertising. The evidence indicated that two candidates for public office purchased the same amount of advertisement space from the respondent. However, the candidates were charged rates differing by $5,000 for the same amount of space. Therefore, there is credible evidence of a violation of section 255.002(b) of the Election Code.

That ruling resulted in a $500 fine to the slate’s publisher.

In the Katy Christian Magazine case, Judge Jay Karahan paid $1,200 for a one-half page ad in the February / March 2018 issue of the magazine. The same issue also contained a one-half page ad for Judge Karahan’s opponent Dan Simons. After reviewing Mr. Simons’ campaign finance reports, Judge Karahan saw that Mr. Simons only paid $400 for his comparable use ad.

Judge Karahan inquired about this discrepancy via email to Joseph Menslage, President/Publisher of Katy Christian Magazine. Mr. Menslage responded thusly:

The reason why Mr. Simons got a better deal is because he negotiated with us on the pricing. As a business owner, we do have the right to negotiate.

Of course businesses have the right to negotiate. But the law says that Mr. Menslage must charge candidates the lowest charge made for comparable use of the space.

I have nothing against this particular slate (other than the “Christian” branding) but I hope that Judge Karahan files a complaint with the Texas Ethics Commission so that Mr. Menslage will have a better understanding of the law and his responsibilities when accepting payment for advertising. There are other examples of this practice in the same and previous issues of the slate.

Perhaps Mary Sergesketter will address this problem in her talk about the slates.

Baytown Republican Women kickoff and social tomorrow night

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This is great news and shows the effectiveness of having satellite offices for the Harris County Republican Party.

 

baytown republican women

The Harris County Republican Party is growing and taking on the challenge of engaging with communities to the southeast of Houston, including Baytown. After months of tireless work, we are proud to have built a network of committed activists who are dedicated to conservative principles and values. To celebrate our party’s latest victory, we invite you to join us for the Baytown Republican Women Kickoff event! This inaugural event is a great opportunity to meet and greet some of our party’s most dedicated activists on the southeast side of Harris County. We’ll need every part of Harris County working together to defeat Democrats in November and keep the county red. For details about the club or membership inquiries, please contact Baytown field representative Victor Sanchez.

Thursday – February 15, 2018 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

Harris County Republican Party – Baytown Office

4721 Garth Rd., Suite B100 Baytown, TX 77521

rsvp

 

Chris Carmona: To Win Again in Harris County, Technology is a Must

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Press release from the Chris Carmona campaign:

chris carmona campaign header

Fellow Patriot,
When we Republicans in Harris County lost every countywide race in November 2016, the HCRP was in fact out-maneuvered by the local Democrats. As your next Chairman of the HCRP, I plan to put a stop to this. Over the last several weeks I have been sharing my plan with you for the future of the HCRP. Among those planks to win again is to improve the use of technology in the operation of our party.

We can start by making better use of free, far-reaching tools. But we can also invest in an App that our grassroots activists, candidates, and officeholders can use. This is about providing tools for those people that make up our party, to engage, to inform and to turn out our vote in each election.

This of course would all be connected to a voter database so that it actually means something to our end-users. If you are a precinct chair, you know the headaches involved with working through the mazes of that HCRP database in 2016. I have received plenty of negative feedback to know that the system needs to be built correctly. When our precinct leaders are not equipped with basic tools, leadership has failed.

I plan to run an HCRP operation that will utilize aggressive data sets to target voters based on voting propensity, not just voter history. This is a huge gap that the HCRP is leaving on the table, and we are losing elections at the same time.

The Republican National Committee has this raw data, and my plan is to use it correctly for a change. Anyone who knows anything about Big Data knows that all the data in the world is useless unless you make the data ask the right questions.

The GOTV efforts of the HCRP failed us all in 2016. My plan will make GOTV more effective and will deliver at a lower cost than the expensive and ineffective GOTV effort we saw in 2016. Technology and GOTV means more than just having a Facebook page.

This is just one part of the plan to help us win again in Harris County.

It is time to win again!

Thank you,

Chris Carmona
Candidate, Chairman of the HCRP

Related:

Press Release: A Media Strategy to Win Again in Harris County

Paul Simpson releases 30 day fundraising totals

More on the endorsement slates in Harris County: The endorsement slates that accept payment for their endorsements would love for voters in Harris County to forget their history.