Putting it all together: Case Studies
Research = Power
Everyone knew State Senator Pedro Espada needed to be removed from office. Even in New York, where political corruption is so commonplace that it hardly seems like news, Espada's reputation was appalling. But he was also a sly politician, giving away food and back to school items to his low-income constituents on a regular basis, and constantly promoting himself as a champion of the people.
Things looked good for Espada In 2008. First he virtually blackmailed his way into the position of Senate Majority Leader, giving him a huge, taxpayer-funded staff that he could use for self-promotion. Then several people all stepped forward to challenge Espada, creating a multi-candidate split field that could easily have allowed him to return to office.
Once more, the pundits and press declared that Espada would return to office despite the best intentions of his opponents. Enter Red Horse Strategies and our client, the New Roosevelt Institute (NRI). NRI is a pro-reform good government group, and was prepared to launch an Independent Expenditure to topple Espada if the race was winnable.
Our first task was to narrow the field. For this we turned to the facts and a well-planned media push. RHS crafted a poll, designed the methodology and did the analysis. What we found was that the only hope to beat Espada was to have only one challenger.
We then released our findings to the world, and using the media and public pressure, we were able to get all but one of the challengers to lay aside their ambitions for the greater good.
The race was far from over. Espada still had high name identification, plenty of money and a core of supporters. So the next step was to increase the name recognition for the lone remaining challenger, college professor Gustavo Rivera. We developed an aggressive mail campaign backed up by targeted phones and a focused door to door and GOTV program to persuade and turnout Rivera's supporters.
On primary election night, as the results rolled in people were stunned. In polling places that were known to be strongly anti-Espada, turnout jumped as much as 400% over the previous election, leading to a crushing defeat for Espada.