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GOP uses La. Senate runoff to test systems for 2016

By David M. Drucker

With the Louisiana Senate runoff election favoring GOP Rep. Bill Cassidy, the Republican National Committee decided to use the campaign to begin refining and testing its voter turnout operation ahead of the 2016 presidential contest.

In a memo shared with the Washington Examiner, the RNC outlined its work during the month-long runoff campaign that public opinion polls project as an easy Cassidy victory over incumbent Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu. The national party invested $2 million in the race, paying the same attention to early voting and get-out-the-vote activities that helped Republicans capture close Senate seats in the Nov. 4 general election.

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The RNC took the extra step of re-deploying more than 200 field, data and GOTV staff from other states to Louisiana for the balance of the runoff campaign. GOP officials used the race as a “training exercise and team building effort” to test lessons learned during the 2014 midterms, when the party won eight Senate seats and captured control of the chamber for the first time since 2006.

“We’re training staff for 2016, and our V365 operation that saw resounding success so far this year will head in to the presidential cycle as an even more finely tuned operation,” RNC Political Director Chris McNulty wrote in the memo.

In addition to their Senate victories — a win in the Louisiana runoff on Saturday would mark the GOP’s ninth pickup of the 2014 election cycle — the party gained a dozen House seats and three governor’s mansions, including in deep blue Illinois, Maryland and Massachusetts. The GOP is crediting much of that success to the digital voter turnout operation the party built in the aftermath of its disappointing showing in 2012, when President Obama won re-election over Republican nominee Mitt Romney and the Democrats picked up two Senate seats.

The RNC invested more than $105 million to create and run the program over the last two years, and party officials believe it could be crucial to GOP chances for winning the White House in 2016. The RNC has been analyzing what worked and what didn’t so that it could improve the operation before the next general election. The memo from McNulty reads as follows:

FROM: RNC Political Director Chris McNulty
TO: Interested Parties
RE: Strong GOP Early Vote Another Setback For Landrieu
Time is not on the side of three-term Democrat Senator Mary Landrieu. Down in the polls and in fundraising, Landrieu’s already grim reelection prospects were dealt another blow in the early voting period that concluded over the weekend. Early voting results prove what we already know: Landrieu is losing, and in yet another pivotal state, our turnout operation is trouncing the Democrats.
Overall, turnout was down 10 points from the November 4th jungle primary. But while turnout dropped 18 points among registered Democrats, turnout among Republicans increased by 4 points. Key Democrat strongholds like Orleans Parish saw steep declines, while Republican-leaning areas like St. Tammany Parish saw modest increases.
This is an extremely alarming development for Landrieu, who only took 42 percent of the vote in the jungle primary despite registered Democrats outnumbering registered Republicans in the early vote 52-33 percent, or about 45,000 votes. That gap has closed in the general election to a margin of 47-38 percent, or about 20,000 votes. In other words, Mary Landrieu’s share of the vote likely peaked on November 4th while Bill Cassidy’s is likely to grow.
So how did Republicans increase turnout even as overall turnout dropped double digits? A superior ground game over a year in the making.
We knew going into this cycle that knocking off entrenched incumbents like Landrieu is no easy feat. Until this year, it had been over three decades since Republicans defeated more than two incumbent Democrat Senators in an election cycle. That’s why the RNC invested earlier than ever before in key states across the country, including Louisiana, where we began adding staff and offices in the Summer of 2013.
After Senator Landrieu narrowly came in ahead of Cassidy on November 4th, the RNC doubled down on our robust field operation in Louisiana, adding an additional 200 paid staff to ensure her path to victory remained closed.
In total, the RNC has spent $2.9 million in Louisiana as part of a $105 million nationwide investment that helped bring about a resounding midterm defeat for President Obama and the Democrats. We’re training staff for 2016, and our V365 operation that saw resounding success so far this year will head in to the presidential cycle as an even more finely tuned operation.
Our investments are paying off in Louisiana, where Bill Cassidy and the Republican ticket remain firmly in the driver’s seat with four days left to go and we will continue to push forward toward Election Day. After 18 years in Washington, Mary Landrieu’s days in the Senate are finally numbered and Republicans are poised to add to this year’s historic gains.

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