From The Ground Up: Understanding Vertical Strategy to Maximize Wins
Leveraging Local Strengths for Statewide Political Success
Organizations working in the electoral space utilize multiple strategies to maximize the impact of voter outreach. These strategies inform endorsements, resource distribution and voter targeting. For this piece, I am going to focus on vertical strategy and will use Missouri as an example, as it also demonstrates a multi-cycle strategy.
The easiest way to envision voters involved in a vertical strategy is as Russian nesting dolls or as the ripples emanating from a rock tossed into a pond. This “bottom-up” strategy is designed to mobilize voters down-ballot who will vote for your desired candidates up the ballot to the top of the ticket. There are two aspects to voter behavior that make this a more effective strategy than mobilizing voters at the Presidential level with the idea that they will vote for party candidates down ballot. First, the majority of voters have little familiarity with down-ballot races. Even with high levels of excitement to vote for POTUS, casual voters often times leave the other races on their ballot blank. The second is that real-life engagement between a candidate and voter is a great motivator. This type engagement is much more likely at the state and local level than at the federal level.
Let’s walk through an example of a vertical strategy that involves MO-HD-100, MO-02, MO-SEN. Of these races, MO-HD-100 is the most likely to flip this cycle. Colin Lovett (D) is running for the second time for this seat, which he lost by a little over 1000 votes in the previous election. MO-02 has been held by Ann Wagner (R) since 2013. While, it is not favored to flip, we have a well-known candidate, Ray Hartmann (D) who could make considerable gains, if not win, with maximum Democratic turnout. The same is true for Lucas Kunce (D), running for MO-SEN.
In 2022 a re-districted map was adopted for Missouri. It significantly enlarged MO-02, and it did make it a bit more red, but not by much. The district extends much further west of the St. Louis area than it did before, including less densely populated areas and more solidly red. Strong voter turnout in the parts of MO-02 that are within St. Louis County can offset the more rural areas considerably. Hence, turning out every possible vote in MO-HD-100 will also turn out needed voters for MO-02.
Likewise, turning out more Democratic voters in higher population areas like St. Louis County has a positive impact on the Senate race, where Lucas Kunce (D) is trying to unseat Josh Hawley (R). While, this race has a lot of national interest, the realities of a MO-SEN win for Democrats are challenging, to say the least. As you can see from the 2022 Missouri Senate Election map below, the population centers have a heavy lift to overcome the rest of the state. The actual numbers represented by this map were Eric Schmitt (R) 1,146,966 (55.3%) votes vs. Trudy Busch Valentine (D) 872,694 votes (42.18 %).
Vertical strategies can absolutely impact the top of the ticket, as well, particularly in Swing States. In a state such as Pennyslvania, GOTV at the district level is an excellent strategy for driving a Harris/Walz win. When you are running GOTV campaigns for multiple seats at the same level in the same state, this is considered a horizontal strategy. Horizontal and vertical strategies are used together to help turn a state from red to blue.
The candidates used in this example can be supported in the following ways:
Colin Lovet (MO-HD-100) Donate | Volunteer
Ray Hartmann (MO-02) Donate | Volunteer
Lucas Kunce (MO-SEN) Donate| Volunteer