Research, digital & fundraising for Democrats in tough seats

We don’t write off
hard races.

We work with Democratic candidates, state parties, and independent expenditures competing in Republican-leaning and swing districts across the industrial Midwest.

↓ Services

Strategy, research, and digital for races without a safe margin.

National firms treat a R+6 district the same way they treat a safe primary: showing up late with a generic script and a pricey media buy. We start with theResearch ↗and buildPaid media ↗andFundraising ↗that sound like the place they’re running in.

That might be the research file for a challenger’s first race, the TV and digital buy for an independent expenditure, or aCampaign site ↗that has to be live by Monday.

Who we work with

Challengers & frontliners

IEs & labor tables

State parties & ballot campaigns

Research + Strategy
Message / book / responseCandidates / IEs / State Parties
Work with us

Settle the argument before anyone writes an ad.

Diagram: the voter file, polling, the opponent's record, and local press feed one research file, and the TV spot, mail piece, digital ads, stump speech, and earned media all come out of it. SourcesVoter filePollingOpponent recordLocal pressResearch fileMessage frameworkOutputTV spotMail pieceDigital adsStump speechEarned media

We work with the campaign early to figure out who the persuadable voters are, what they care about, and how this candidate should talk about it. The message framework and the paid-media plan come out of the same research file.

Know the opponent’s record cold before the first ad is cut.

We build the book on the opponent from votes, donors, court filings, business records, public records requests, and local press, and we do the same vulnerability study on our own candidate. Both feed one contrast plan the whole campaign works from.

Turn a bad vote or a local clip into a live ad within hours.

When an opponent votes against local jobs, hospitals, or public schools, waiting two weeks on an agency storyboard loses the news cycle. The research is already in the file; we cut and traffic the contrast spot fast and get the clip to local reporters.

Paid Media
Targeting / TV / mailBroadcast / Cable / CTV / Mail / Meta
Work with us

Pick the audience before you pick the ad.

Diagram: the voter file is scored, sorted into persuadable, likely voter, GOTV, and donor prospect universes, and each universe is matched to its own channels. Voter fileUniversesPersuadable0%Likely voter0%GOTV0%Donor prospect0%ChannelsCTVMetaYouTubeMailAudio

We build each audience from the voter file, modeled support and turnout scores, and donor history, then match it on connected TV, Meta, YouTube, and streaming audio, and mail the same universes. Persuadable voters, likely voters, a GOTV list of supporters who might stay home, and donor prospects each get their own universe and their own budget, so nobody gets an ad written for somebody else.

Every ad starts from the research file.

We write the scripts and make the ads in-house: graphics, short video for social, spots for TV, CTV, and radio, and direct mail.

TV in your district without paying for the whole market.

We plan broadcast, cable, connected TV, and radio as one buy. Zoned cable and CTV let a state house or congressional race run TV in its own district instead of the whole Cleveland or Detroit market. Local radio reaches rural counties for much less than TV. We place the buys, confirm the spots ran, and report every week.

Get the piece in the mailbox before the vote.

We design persuasion and GOTV mail in-house and send it to the same voter-file universes as the ads. Swing voters get the persuasion piece. Supporters who might stay home get the GOTV piece. We manage the print and the drop, and time each one to early vote and election day.

Put every dollar in front of the voters who decide the race.

We buy and optimize Meta, YouTube, programmatic display, and streaming audio against those audiences, test creative live, and report results in plain English every week.

Fundraising
4 channels / net-returnEmail / Texting / Ads / List Growth
Work with us

Raise money online without sounding like a spam bot.

Diagram: a message is written and sent, lands in an inbox and as a text on a phone, and the contributions it raises post to a ledger. New messageSendInboxGifts0Recurring

Challengers in red-leaning seats can’t afford scammy 700%-match subject lines that wreck their credibility at home. We write high-converting email and SMS in the candidate’s real voice, and set up the ActBlue pages and recurring program behind them.

Grow a donor file that pays back before the final quarter.

We run Meta, search, and lead-generation acquisition flights tracked by return on ad spend and payback window, so a national news moment turns into recurring donors instead of a one-time spike.

Stay out of the spam folder when election month hits.

Deliverability is the difference between a record end-of-quarter haul and a dead list. We manage domain reputation, segmentation, and dormant donor reactivation from the first send.

Web + Identity
Launch in daysBranding / Websites / Microsites
Work with us

An identity built for yard signs, union halls, and mobile screens.

Diagram: one campaign lockup, shown at the size it needs on a yard sign, a mail piece, and a phone screen. Yard signMail piecePhone

We design candidate brands that look credible on a barn sign on Route 30 and sharp on a phone screen: wordmark, color system, field literature, social templates, and launch kit.

A campaign site live the week of the announcement.

Static sites and microsites that load on a bad rural cell signal, with ActBlue, Mobilize, and volunteer signup wired in from day one of the campaign.

Where we work
Six states across the industrial Midwest
Select a state to inspect media markets & voter terrainMedia market codes are Nielsen DMAs
Territory504 counties / 6 statesselectedmedia market
Ohio: 88 counties, 15 congressional districts

Ohio went for Trump by eight points in 2020 and passed abortion rights by thirteen in 2023. The voters who do both are the race.

Markets: Cleveland–Akron, Youngstown, Toledo, Columbus, Dayton, Cincinnati.

Michigan: 83 counties, 13 congressional districts

Michigan voters will split a ticket for a Democrat who talks plainly about wages, auto jobs, and what groceries cost.

Markets: Detroit, Grand Rapids–Kalamazoo, Flint–Saginaw–Bay City, Lansing, Traverse City.

Wisconsin: 72 counties, 8 congressional districts

Three of the last four presidential races in Wisconsin were decided by less than a point. A script written for a national audience gets tuned out fast.

Markets: Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay–Appleton, Eau Claire–La Crosse, Wausau.

Indiana: 92 counties, 9 congressional districts

Indiana gets written off, so most races never get a real campaign. A Democrat with a plain economic case and a real budget can run one.

Markets: Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, South Bend–Elkhart, Evansville, Terre Haute, Lafayette (Northwest Indiana via Chicago).

Illinois: 102 counties, 17 congressional districts

Illinois is a blue state with swing districts. The congressional and legislative seats outside the city turn on property taxes and jobs, not national talking points.

Markets: Chicago & Collars, Quad Cities, Rockford, Peoria–Bloomington, Springfield, Metro East.

Pennsylvania: 67 counties, 17 congressional districts

Pennsylvania has been decided by under two points in three straight presidential elections, and it’s a different state in every media market. We write and buy for each one separately.

Markets: Pittsburgh, Philadelphia & Collars, Wilkes-Barre–Scranton, Erie, Johnstown–Altoona, Harrisburg, Lehigh Valley.

We’re a small Midwestern shop, and we’ve worked these districts ourselves.

We work directly with the campaign manager, finance director, and field lead from the start, so the ad a voter sees at night matches what the canvasser said on the porch that afternoon.

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