It ain’t over. We’re in a runoff election for May 28th. I received 32,000 votes in the March 5th election (thank you all!), but missed winning outright by just 205 votes. Them’s the breaks! We’re very confident about the runoff as I received 51 percent more votes than the second-place finisher, but elections are elections, so we’re out there doing the work to win BIG!
All that said, my previous 315-day plan as Collin County Republican Party Chair has now been abbreviated due to the runoff election. So I’m pleased to present to you my new and improved 231-Day Plan (now with 27 percent fewer days AND calories!)
231 days is still an odd number, in more ways than one, but that’s the number of days between the Runoff Election Day on May 28th (early voting is May 20-24), and the start of the next Texas Legislative Session on January 14, 2025.
This plan is condensed, in both implementation timeline and time to read. The overaching goals are the same, though, and I’ve added a little detail below, particularly given some of the things that have come to light during the campaign and the aftermath.
This is a concrete plan of action based on my long experience, and it’s meant to drive results; it’s not just platitudes and red meat. I’ve always given you substance and depth, so if that’s what you want in a candidate, I’m your guy.
For the condensed, bulleted version, click here.
I chose the anchors of the election and the start of the next legislative session for two reasons:
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- Although I wouldn’t be sworn in as Chair until June 17th, there’s too much to do for the 2024 election to wait around. We had hoped to win on March 5th and avoid a runoff so that we could get right to work, which we might have been able to do given a whirlwind series of events.
- We don’t all pack up and go home after the November 2024 election. At least, we’d better not. Getting candidates elected isn’t the ultimate goal–that’s only the beginning. The real job (and the real fun) comes with moving the legislative needle. I’m active at the Capital in Austin every session, and that’s where all of our hard work culminates.
There are a few things we need to do between now and then, though, with considerable overlap.
Before the plan, though, since we’re in a runoff election for two more months, I’m going to ask you now for a campaign contribution to help make the plan below a reality. Please consider contributing here.
1) Unite the Party
This is much easier said than done. There’s a ton of infighting in the party, it’s been increasing for years, and it’s intensified just during this election cycle. But I’ve united before; I was part of doing it with the City of Plano after years of contentious elections.
There are three key things I plan to do to achieve this, and I’ve already begun to do them:
- Set the tone, and treat everyone with respect and dignity. I’ve already connected with countless people, supporters and detractors alike. I’ll be honest, serving on Plano City Council for the past five years honed this. If I can help bridge Republicans, Democrats, and Independents (sorry, Libertarians, you just weren’t in the mix), then I can help bridge Republicans with Republicans. Nearly 50 Precinct Chairs have resigned in disgust from the direction the party is moving. They’ve been run out by a contingent who cares more about infighting than the important work we’re charged to do to advance Republican values. Haters gonna hate, but we need to make them understand we have a job to do–with or without them.
- Work with the Executive Committee to create focused executive leadership roles to more efficiently carry out the will of the Executive Committee. Committees serve a vital purpose, and are for focused deliberation, but by their very nature, they’re not action-oriented. When they do execute, it’s out of necessity. Once the Executive Committee approves a course of action, a team with an accountable leader is needed to take action. We need teams for Precinct Chair training and development, Toolkit Development, Recruitment, etc.
- Refocus everyone on the overarching objective: advancing Republican values. Winning elections is only the beginning. The people we elect were elected to do something with that seat. I’ve served on the last two Republican Party of Texas Legislative Priority Committees and have been very focused on the “what” as well as the “how” and everyone I’ve spoken with about this is in complete agreement.
We won’t have everyone holding hands by June 17th, but a solid “I won’t mess with you if you don’t mess with me” arrangement will be a vast improvement. This will be necessary because I can’t just wave a magic gavel and call forth executive action into being. It requires the vote of the Executive Committee, not a pen and a phone. Working with the Executive Committee to chart out a shared vision will help us achieve our next goal:
2) Modernize Our Electoral Approach
This has everything to do with technology, social media, and organizational management. I want to make real headway with this by the end of August. Let’s tackle them one at a time.
- Hooo boy, are we behind! We work primarily with ad hoc spreadsheets and paper lists. Sometimes we make some use of blockwalking apps, but they’re only as good as the data we feed them. We need all of the following at a minimum:
- A Customer Relationship Management system (CRM). Salesforce is good, but pricey, and many alternatives would work well for us.
- A secure, robust database system. This needs to be kept up-to-date always with the latest and best information from voter registration lists, blockwalking apps, Precinct Chairs, and volunteers. It will allow us to merge and analyze data from numerous angles with pre-built or ad hoc queries. A data visualization tool would be gravy.
- A cost-effective mass email solution. Personally, I use Amazon SES. MailChimp and Constant Contact can get really expensive for mass mails, and the biggest benefits are the user-friendly tools and templates, which I already have built into my website.
- A good Content Management System (CMS) for our website to allow for easy, intuitive, basic content updates, including publishing events to a public calendar reliably. This also includes web forms to intake information, like new voter info, volunteers, and requests for the Executive Committee Meeting agenda.
- A blockwalking app. We already have one, and maybe it’s the best one for us, but it’s still something we need, so on the list it goes.
- We need to make better use of social media. It would be good to have a social media management tool, like Hootsuite or Hubspot, but these aren’t critical for now. What is critical is to manage cohesive campaigns across social media platforms, including effective social media advertising. It’s cost-effective, and we don’t have to hire someone for an arm and a leg to do it. I’m doing it right now myself for my own campaign, and the best thing about ads is you break outside your own organic echo chamber.
- Transforming our County Party into a deep, rumbling, 8-cylinder machine. This gets me jazzed. I’m not thinking of your run-of-the-mill well-oiled corporate machine here. I’m thinking more of an old-school V8 Camero; the kind with giant rear tires and an attitude, like it’s ready to take a big savage bite out of the pastel-colored sedan in front of it. The kind of machine that dares you to get in its way. There are 252 precincts in the county. There’s no reason we can’t have that many Precinct Chairs, and three times that many volunteers. That’s about 1,000 people, by the way. But here’s the thing: we have to equip them and enable them to succeed. We have to purposefully develop toolkits and resources from flyers and graphics to voter lists, to presentations, to scripts, to swag, to lists of venues in each precinct where Precinct Chairs can host socials, etc.
At ALL times we have to have more to do than we have volunteers to do it. There’s nothing more demoralizing to a volunteer who’s energized, and raises their hand to get involved, only to be told, “We’ll let you know if anything comes up that you can do.” You can almost hear the sad deflating balloon sound from them when that happens, and it’s inexcusable. We have to have an inexhaustible list of tasks and work to match to anyone, no matter their talents.
This is, incidentally, how we dramatically increase our fundraising. Here’s my simple plan for raising $2 million a year for the Collin County Republican Party. Collin County is Texas’s 6th largest county, with more than a million people. 101,000 of them voted in the March 5th Republican Primary election, identifying themselves as adult Republicans, and we know how to get in touch with all of them! All it takes is an average contribution of $20 per year from each of those adult Republican voters to hit $2 million. Some won’t give any, some will give $1,000. The real keys will be reaching them all (with that machine of 1,000+ people) and making sure they feel they’re getting a good enough return on their investment to invest an average of $20 per year each. Easy Peasy.
But fundraising isn’t the most powerful thing the machine can do…
3) Reach the Countless Republicans Who Don’t Yet Know They’re Republican
I still want to start this by September. Based on personal experience, I believe that at least 10 percent of non-Republicans actually align with Republican values and would vote Republican, but they don’t know they’re Republican because they don’t actually know what the parties stand for! Everyone I’ve spoken with about this thinks it’s more than 10 percent.
To reach out to them and bring them on board, we first need to reach them on a human level, not a political level.
We go out into the community, on their turf, and we engage them in the things they care about where we have common interests. It could be a PTA, a volunteer project, or a community class. We don’t even need to come equipped with the Republican Party of Texas Platform or our talking points. All we need to do is come with a genuine shared interest and not hide that we’re Republicans. Engage with them and let them see for themselves that we’re not the fascists they’ve been taught we are. Let them start to doubt their own assumptions while we keep smiling and treating them as fellow children of God. It will take longer with some than with others to break down their pre-conceived notions, but it will happen.
A 10 percent voter shift represents a 20 percent electoral shift. That will win elections. That is a return on investment. But that will take time and will be an ongoing effort over years.
4) Win the 2024 Election
This one is self-explanatory, but everything we’ve discussed thus far feeds into it. We equip our team with the updated tools, technology, and training to take on the county by storm. But, you guessed it, that’s only the beginning.
5) Legislative Action
Subtitled “Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty.” The day after election day, the real work begins. Now is NOT the time to leave the field and congratulate ourselves on a job well done. All these newly elected or re-elected people were elected for a reason, and now it’s time to work with them to do it. The new Congress and the Texas Legislature will convene in just a couple of months. Early bill filing will begin in a month. The next President will be sworn in in January. Now is the time to make our voices heard and start rallying the troops to make our voices heard and prepare to get them to the State Capital once session starts for committee hearings and floor votes.
But that will be in my subsequent 140 day plan (which is how long the regular legislative session lasts).
If you’ve made it this far, and if my plan resonates with you, I ask for your contribution, your vocal support, and your vote in the May 28th runoff election. Early Voting is from May 20-24. We have a machine to build!
