John,
I know you don’t hear from me very often, but now that we’re a few weeks past John’s historic and commanding primary win, I wanted to share a memo with some of our top supporters (yes, that means you) about how we did.
It’s a bit long, but I think it’s really important that we show how we won this primary and what we need to do to win in November. If you don’t have time to read through it all right now, could you please make a donation right now to help us keep up with Dr. Oz’s self-funding campaign? With less than four months until the general election, we need youse guys to chip in whenever you can.
Alright, here ya go:
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TO: Interested Parties John Fetterman racked up a huge margin of victory on primary night in practically every part of the state, winning all 67 counties and every demographic. As Senator Bob Casey observed, “I think it was a commanding performance by John Fetterman…I have never seen in a major race for the United State Senate, or governor, or even president, a more overwhelming primary win.” In a race with 4 candidates on the ballot, Fetterman received more than 50% of the vote in 65 of 67 counties. And in 33 counties, nearly half the counties in the state, his vote share was an incredible 70% or higher.
Despite the final margin of victory, Fetterman didn’t have an easy primary. While our campaign consistently outraised all of our opponents combined, an outside super PAC kept overall spending on television at parity, with $4,986,114 in total spending for Fetterman and $3,973,942 in spending for our closest opponent. We were actually outspent in the Philadelphia and Scranton-Wilkes Barre media markets. But the Fetterman campaign spent our money wisely, stuck to our plan, and made every dollar spent on TV go farther than our opponents’. And because we relied on grassroots donations to the campaign and not massive checks to super PACs, we were able to take full advantage of the huge difference in advertising rates paid by campaigns versus outside groups, and our campaign was able to build a sustainable program that will scale for the general election. REDRAWING THE MAP FOR DEMOCRATS We understood that to win Pennsylvania in a tough year like 2022, Democrats have to do things differently. We cannot afford to focus almost exclusively on Philadelphia and Pittsburgh while ignoring the rest of the state. Margins matter, even in counties that Democrats are never going to turn blue, and it’s become clear that Democrats need to be able to compete in rural counties as well as urban ones. Since John launched his campaign 16 months ago with the slogan ‘Every County, Every Vote,’ he has been clear that his campaign wouldn’t be writing off any part of the state. John has traveled across Pennsylvania, not only doing events but consistently drawing large, enthusiastic crowds in some of the Commonwealth’s reddest counties. As a result, John has built up strong support in the parts of the state where Democrats traditionally struggle. In fact, John won 22 counties with more than 75% of the vote – and all but one of them voted for Trump in 2020. This has also given John a head start on the general election. While most nominees don’t start working to win over independent, moderate, and Republican voters until after the primary, that has been a focal point of John’s campaign since the very beginning. Even back in 2018, when John ran on the ticket with Governor Tom Wolf, he traveled all over the state, putting over 80,000 miles on his truck as he talked to voters in every corner — regardless of how red or blue. And with John as his running mate, Gov. Wolf won the general election by almost a million more votes than he did in 2014. John and Gov. Wolf also flipped six counties that had been won by Donald Trump in 2016. “He has a chance to reach voters who wouldn’t typically vote for a Democrat.” The Atlantic, 5/17/22 John Fetterman is exactly the kind of candidate that so many said we needed after Trump got elected: someone who can appeal to working class and rural voters who have been leaving the Democratic Party. But at the same time, he is the former four-term mayor of a town that is more than 70% Black, and has a long record of work in the community. John performed well in Philadelphia on primary night – especially when you consider that he was outspent on TV, it’s Kenyatta’s base (and “Philadelphia” appeared next to his name on the ballot), and Lamb had nearly every major endorsement in the city. In fact, as University of Pittsburgh Professor Lara Putnam pointed out, outside of Kenyatta’s base in Philadelphia, John performed well across a diversity of demographics, doing as well in precincts with large Black populations as he did in mostly white precincts:
Primary results show that John Fetterman can and will compete in every part of Pennsylvania, including putting Republican counties, and Republican voters, in play. THE PERFECT CANDIDATE FOR 2022 John has the right message, and is the right messenger, for a year like 2022. In a tough midterm election in which traditional Democrats are going to struggle, John doesn’t have to convince people he’s not like other Democrats or other politicians – they can see it for themselves. John is an authentic, straight-talking, no-BS populist whose style defies conventional labels. He just is who he is, and voters respect that. Throughout the primary, in fact, our opponents discovered just how hard it is to make labels stick. A leaked memo from an opposing super PAC admitted as much, noting that their main problem was that voters didn’t view John as too progressive for Pennsylvania. At a time when the Beltway media and insiders try to classify all Democrats as either part of the Bernie wing or the Biden wing, John defies categorization. As Vox wrote, John has “staked out a path between the political left and the center, and has developed a strong personal brand as a pragmatic outsider.” “John Fetterman doesn’t just have supporters — he has fans.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer, 4/20/22 As the Philadelphia Inquirer observed, “In a midterm election year when Democrats are expected to struggle, Fetterman's outsized frame and unconventional political demeanor has brought him something of a cult following.” That’s made John a rare phenomenon: a Democrat who nonetheless has a following that crosses partisan lines, and whose popularity isn’t necessarily tied to the popularity of the Democratic Party. John’s coalition is supporting him, no matter the Party’s approval rating. That grassroots enthusiasm helped power our victory, and it’s going to take that kind of enthusiasm to turn this seat blue in November. BUILDING A SMALL DOLLAR FUNDRAISING JUGGERNAUT The strategic decisions that helped make this victory possible date back to the earliest days of the race. Starting with our first fundraising quarter, we invested the money we raised back into the campaign in order to ramp up our fundraising capacity. We built an aggressive digital fundraising operation and invested heavily in acquisition in order to build up a big donor base. We also went big on direct mail, a type of fundraising that some people might think is outdated. (It helps that John is the special kind of candidate who can get folks excited enough to write a check, find an envelope, and put it in a mailbox.) Investing early and heavily in direct mail and in digital fundraising was a calculated gamble, but it’s really paid off. We not only dramatically outraised our opponents, we’ve also built a massive list of donors who can give again and again.
MOTIVATING AN UNMATCHED ORGANIZING OPERATION Through a robust digital organizing program, the Fetterman campaign built an active and engaged group of grassroots volunteers who knocked doors, made calls, and sent texts to voters all across Pennsylvania. Powered by grassroots enthusiasm, the organizing operation contacted a staggering number of voters between launch and the day of the primary, and then managed to significantly scale it up during the get out the vote (GOTV) organizing period. Over the course of the campaign:
WHAT IT MEANS FOR THE GENERAL ELECTION There is no sugarcoating that this is going to be a tough political environment for Democrats. But John is a different kind of Democrat – someone who inspires genuine grassroots enthusiasm, connects with working class voters, and has proven that he can expand the map and win votes in both the bluest and the reddest counties in Pennsylvania. As the primary showed, John Fetterman is exactly the kind of candidate who can win in a tough year for Democrats. He’s a unique candidate with a strong personal brand that transcends partisanship, a massive grassroots fundraising operation, and the ability to appeal not only to core Democratic voters, but also to working class and rural voters in parts of the state where Democrats often struggle. |
Thanks for reading.
More soon,
Joe
Joe Calvello
Director of Communications
John Fetterman for U.S. Senate
