Be Prepared

Meanwhile, at a nearby field office, other volunteers are calling potential survey-takers on the phone, with about the same success rates as those out in the streets. It’s common to have someone hang up before the volunteer can even say her name. Elderly folks on the other end think the callers are trying to sell them something. One volunteer ends the last of several short calls in a row with an apology and a promise to take the caller off AFP’s list. None of it’s glamorous, but all this political grunt work in the middle of 2015, AFP officials say, is preparing the organization and its 35 state chapters for their biggest battle yet: 2016.

Americans for Prosperity is the flagship political organization of libertarian billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch. AFP spent $122 million in 2012, more than in its eight previous years of existence combined, and $77 million in the 2014 midterm elections, a lot of it on TV advertising. The New York Times reported in January that the Koch brothers told their large network of fellow donors they plan to raise and spend nearly $900 million on political advocacy during the 2016 election cycle. While AFP won’t disclose their 2016 budget, it’s likely to be a sizable chunk of that $900 million.

After being outgunned by President Obama’s Organizing for America (OFA) and other left-wing political action committees in the run-up to the 2012 election, conservative groups struggled to figure out how to reform their campaign operations for 2014 and beyond. Some, like the Chamber of Commerce, focused on backing higher-quality Senate candidates and played a role in GOP primaries. The Republican National Committee conducted a lengthy “autopsy” of the 2012 loss that concluded the party needed to rebrand itself, revamp its messaging, and restructure its data operation. For AFP, which rose to prominence as a sort of institutional manifestation of the Tea Party movement, success in 2016 means investing heavily in building permanent grassroots operations in battleground states. Which, officials say, is exactly what they’ve been doing.

In swing states like Colorado, there’s already evidence of investment. AFP has five field offices, three in the Denver area and one each in Colorado Springs and Fort Collins. Every activist, down to the brand-new volunteer, is armed with a cheap flip-phone and an iPad loaded with the Koch-funded voter database platform i360. (Activists can also make phone calls from their own homes, on their own devices.) Volunteers can expect free food and beverages between canvassing trips, as well as AFP-branded hats, T-shirts, and other swag. But AFP is also beefing up personnel. In addition to Fields, the state director, Colorado’s chapter has more than 20 full-time staff members, including a deputy state director and 7 field directors in different regions of the state, along with several part-time staffers and an ever-growing pool of volunteers. 

What are all these people doing, more than a year before the 2016 election? Lots of phone calls and door-to-door canvassing to target a curated list of “persuadables”—not hardcore Republicans or Democrats but people who might vote and might be willing to support policies and candidates in line with the group’s small-government, pro-free-market philosophy. This year, at least, AFP’s activism focuses on local issues, particularly education. In Jefferson County, the second-largest school district in the state, recall petitions for three conservative school-board members are gathering steam. AFP activists there are working to educate voters about the benefits of school-choice reforms passed by the board, and its door-to-door canvassers and phone bankers ask specific survey questions about those reforms.

The goal is to bolster AFP’s voter lists with as much information as possible—how a particular voter feels about Obamacare and school choice, if he views himself as conservative or liberal, even what time of day he is most likely to be home. That won’t just help AFP learn who to target for get-out-the-vote efforts in, say, the potential school-board recall elections in Jefferson County this November. They’ll know who to get out and how on Election Day 2016. “This is what OFA was doing between 2008 and 2012,” says Dustin Zvonek, AFP’s western regional director. 

Will emulating OFA pay off? AFP prides itself on its commitment not to a party or a candidate but to ideas, chiefly the free-market philosophy espoused by the Kochs. But OFA’s strengths were its alignment with an inspirational leader (President Barack Obama) and a clear policy agenda (the Obama administration’s). Similarly, organizations such as the Sierra Club and the National Rifle Association have identifiable single-issue causes with small but passionate bases of support. 

By contrast, AFP campaigns on everything from energy policy to taxes to health care. Their broad-based list of issues makes them less like an interest group and more like a major political party—but without the benefits a party enjoys, like universal familiarity and the ability to coordinate with candidates. In the eyes of AFP leadership, though, it means the freedom to push the issues they and their donors care about, unencumbered by negative perceptions of the Republican party. That allows the group to make a difference on the margins with independent voters, where swing-state politics are decided.

“I think a lot of the donors are starting to see the benefit” of this off-year build-up, says Michael Fields. “I feel good about it.”

Michael Warren is a staff writer at The Weekly Standard.