WINTER 2015
an October 2014 profile, Steve Friess at
Bloomberg referred Harris as “the man
who invented the Republican Internet.”
Harris’s website provides stimulating
case studies examining the details of the
digital side of a campaign—most notably
his work on Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) campaign
DOMESTIC
coincidentally, the announcement came
just a little over a month after a GOP tech
summit that included digital representatives of the Koch brothers. As Kenneth P.
Vogel and Darren Samuelsohn of Politico
point out, the turnout platform (ORCA)
used by the Romney campaign had ma-
Sound technological operations do not
mean much without a message to convey,
and it can be debated the extent to which
digital strategies affect a political campaign.
for the United States Senate. The case
study chronicles the digital work behind Senator Cruz’s upset bid over then
Lieutenant Governor and establishment
favorite David Dewhurst. The study
shows that Cruz raised almost $3 million
in online donations from a little under
18,500 people for an average of $146.99
per donation. The study further dissects
the data showing that the average Facebook donation was less than $70, the average Twitter donation under $50, while
the average email donation was $116.54
Harris’s success on the Cruz campaign
landed him several other high profile
gigs. He was called upon to direct digital aspects of Senator Mitch McConnell’s
(R-KY) re-election campaign and helped,
in part, to turn what once seemed to be a
toss-up into a comfortable victory for the
newly minted Senate Majority Leader.
Recognizing the benefits to a successful
and well-orchestrated digital game plan,
possible 2016 presidential candidate
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) hired Harris away as his chief digital strategist.
While advocacy through social media and low-dollar fundraising serve key
roles in the digital arena of politics, the
big dollar donations play a major role in
laying the framework for key digital operations. In January 2015, Charles and
David Koch announced plans to spend
$889 million in the 2016 elections. Not
jor flaws. In RNC chairman Reince Priebus’s “autopsy” of the GOP’s failures in
2012, he stressed the need to overhaul the
party’s voter database. Improvements to
the framework and infrastructure of Republican digital operations led to key
victories in the 2014 midterm elections,
and, with the major donors on board,
the party appears to be taking steps towards closing the gap in this digital aspect of political campaigning as well.
As Republicans continue to gain
ground and learn from past mistakes,
Democrats boast several past successful campaigns—most notably President
Barack Obama’s bid for re-election in
2012. Blue State Digital, headed by Joe
Rospars, orchestrated President Obama’s
digital operations in both 2008 and 2012.
On the digital framework front, Blue State
digital, per information obtained from
their website, mobilized tens of millions
of voter contacts. Their infrastructure
helped avoid seemingly unthought-of of
mishaps such as preventing President
Obama’s website from crashing during
key times of the campaign like debates
or the Democratic National Convention.
In the arena of fundraising, Obama’s
campaign was able to raise $690 million
online from 4.4 million donors. More
than half of these donors were new to
the Obama organization, highlighting
the improvements made from an incred-
ibly fruitful 2008 campaign. By simplifying the donation process through
“one-click donations” and thoughtfully
sending out donation emails at critical times of the campaign, President
Obama’s digital game helped raise
him an absurd amount of money that
was crucial in securing his re-election.
On top of