govt 12071335 2

As we’ve discussed, most races in the Texas Legislature are not party-competitive, which means the district lease so heavily Republican or Democrat that the November General Election is not very interesting. One of the few House districts in our area that could be won by a candidate from either party is District 134.

The district is currently represented by moderate Republican Sarah Davis, who is always looking over her shoulder. “Moderate Republican” doesn’t sit well with the currently right-wing Republican Party leadership, and no flavor of “Republican” sits well with the district’s Democrats, which make up nearly half the district’s voters. This is a highly-educated, highly affluent district with voters that pay attention. Rep. Davis was the only Republican to vote against last summer’s special session bill to restrict abortions. That got her a tea-party Republican primary opponent (Bonnie Parker), who Davis defeated easily.

The Democratic Party nominee this fall is Ben Rose, who hasn’t shown much of a campaign yet, but the 2012 Democratic nominee, Ann Johnson, got more than 45% of the vote challenging Rep. Davis.

Your assignment: You’re going to become a phantom campaign manager for one of these two candidates and design a campaign to win the election. Write this assignment as a 2 – 5 page memorandum (Links to an external site.) (but with cited sources) from you, the campaign manager, to your candidate. Outline the race for them, how much money you think they need to raise, how you will raise it for them, what you propose to spend it on, what issues they should talk about, how you want to deliver their message, etc.

Some things to keep in mind:

• Rep. Davis is the incumbent in this race, so she will have an easier time fundraising, but has an extensive voting record for an opponent to target.
• Ms. Rose is the challenger. He will have a harder time raising money, but has no record to defend.
  
• Your candidate is running in a specific district (see the map above). Any money you spend delivering your message to people who don’t live inside the blue-shaded area is wasted money. How do you target the right voters?
• Some people who live in the district can’t vote because they’re under 18 years old, or they’re not U.S. citizens.
• What sort of people live in your candidate’s district. What motivates them?
• What is your candidate’s background and experience? What will be her key issues?
• How much money will you need? How will you raise it? How will you spend it?

This can be a challenging assignment, but it can also be a lot of fun. Keep in mind that campaigning is more art than science, and that there are few absolutely right or wrong answers. If I asked five campaign professionals to do this assignment for the same candidate, I would probably get five totally different campaign strategies (and they’d charge me a lot of money).

Submit in Word. Cite your sources.

---

Resources

What’s a memorandum? Look here: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/590/04/ (Links to an external site.)

The Harris County Democratic Party has links to the candidates websites, Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, etc.: http://www.harrisdemocrats.com/march_2016_primary_candidates

Here’s Rep. Davis’ website: http://www.sarahdavis134.com/

Here’s Ben Rose’s website: http://roseforrep.com/ (Links to an external site.)

Here’s the Texas Tribune’s page on House District 134: http://www.texastribune.org/directory/districts/tx-house/134/ (Links to an external site.)

The “District Analysis” section of former Rep. Davis’ website has a lot of useful information for candidates: http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/member-page/?district=134 (Links to an external site.)

Liberal blogger Charles Kuffner spends a lot of time covering local elections, including posts of interviews with candidates:
http://offthekuff.com/mt/ (Links to an external site.)

Another local blog, Big Jolly Politics, has a lot on local elections:
http://www.bigjolly.com/ (Links to an external site.)

Local political consultant Marc Campos has another perspective on local politics: http://www.camposcommunications.com/dailycommentary.aspx (Links to an external site.)

Campaigns and Elections Magazine editor Ron Faucheaux has an article called “Writing your campaign plan: the seven components for winning an election”:
http://books.google.com/books?id=hWa9QYkFYe4C&lpg=PA66&ots=fPoZLGe3m2&dq=campaign%20plan%20Faucheux&pg=PA66#v=onepage&q=campaign%20plan%20Faucheux&f=false (Links to an external site.)