MRP Victory Programs

Volunteer Recruitment

The 2006 Michigan Republican grassroots army numbered more than 40,000. Any and all success that Republican candidates across the state enjoy tonight is due to the dedication, hard work, and unwavering faith of the stalwart volunteers.

Voter Identification

Michigan volunteers made more voter identification and advocacy calls than any other state Republican party in the entire country. MRP volunteer efforts added more than 2,000,000 pieces of ID to more than 750,000 individual voter records - nearly doubling the number of Ids that were added to the voter file during the 2004 cycle.

List Development & Microtargeting

More than $250,000 was invested in technological upgrades to the RNC-based Michigan Voter Vault file. Using Microtargeting, (click here for more info), we dissected the statewide voter file containing records of more than 7 million voters using a hybrid of political survey and consumer marketing data. The result was a highly effective targeting tool that places those 7 million voters into more than 40 unique segments based upon their likelihood of voting Republican. Furthermore, those 40+ segments are dissected further into both propensity to vote and responsiveness to key issues. This allowed the MRP to highly target the messaging that was delivered to each voter via phones, mail, or in person at their doors.

Field Organization

The MRP opened twenty-seven Victory Centers in 2006, after operating 16 in 2004. We divided the state into twenty field regions and hired a regional director for each. The Regional Field Directors were responsible for interaction with county and local party organizations and recruiting grassroots volunteers. They were responsible for all of the voter contact, voter identification, and get out the vote programs in their regions. Each of the twenty-seven Victory Centers was managed by a Victory Center Director who reported to a Regional Field Director. There were also two Regional Field Supervisors who each oversaw ten of the Regional Field Directors. Additionally, six volunteer recruiters and a staff of six coalition directors reinforced the field structure.

Absentee Ballots

Nearly 2.5 million absentee ballot (AB) applications were delivered to likely Republican voters. More than 1,250,000 pieces of absentee voter "chase" mail was delivered to the target universe of AB voter households. The MRP developed a sophisticated tracking and analysis system to monitor every voter in the state who requests and/or returns an absentee ballot. Partly through MRP's efforts AB voting in the state has risen to a high point for a gubernatorial election year and analysis of the returns show a Republican tilt among AB voters http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200661106007.

GOTV

The closing days of the campaign saw MRP's grassroots army make more than 2 million phone calls and knock on more than 250,000 targeted voter doors. Just for example the total voter contacts this past Sunday and yesterday (Monday) eclipsed the total voter contacts made on the same days at the close of the 2004 presidential election.

RSVP (Republicans Safeguarding Voter's Rights Program)

The MRP has conducted more than 50 training sessions and trained nearly 4,000 volunteers to safeguard voter rights on election day and make sure laws and procedures are followed at more than 2,000 polling locations.

Ethnic Outreach

Dozens of regional ethnic outreach captains were enlisted to organize volunteers and organizations within their areas. The results of these efforts contributed thousands of volunteer man-hours into MRP Victory Centers. Multiple outreach events were held in cities across Michigan.

Church Outreach

The MRP organized efforts aimed primarily at Catholic and Protestant churches, yielding church captains in more than 1,000 individual parishes and congregations. More than 600,000 pieces of MRP candidate literature were distributed via the church network, and the church captains contributed tens or thousands of man-hours to the overall volunteer effort.

Youth Outreach

Every university and college in the state, along with more than 100 high schools, saw efforts made by MRP youth ambassadors to organize and energize Republican groups and volunteers. Thousands of volunteers were recruited as a result and throughout the summer and fall, the MRP Victory Centers were populated with these dedicated youth volunteers. During the closing weeks of the campaign several thousand College Republicans and Teen Age Republicans contributed countless hours making phone calls and knocking on doors.

Other Coalition Outreach

The MRP employed staff to organize and energize dozens of coalition groups in all corners of Michigan. These included business groups, law enforcement, sportsmen, veterans, agriculture, school choice groups, social conservative issue groups, and fiscal conservative issue groups.

Collateral Material Distribution

MRP grassroots volunteer distributed more than 500,000 yard signs, 250,000 bumper stickers, and several million pieces of slate and candidate literature - more than in any previous election year!

News and Advertising Monitoring

The MRP designed and implemented a sophisticated electronic and print media monitoring system that enabled us to monitor every local broadcast television station and newspaper in Michigan for news on issues or candidates, as well as campaign advertising. The system allowed us to immediately convert and catalogue all such news stories or articles into an database and electronic storage system. We were also able to immediately disseminate the stories and ads among the respective campaigns.

Rapid Response

The News and Advertising monitoring system allowed MRP to respond in virtually real-time to any opposition advertising or adverse news stories. Talking points and point-by-point refutations were quickly distributed to the media and grassroots activists so that the Republican response could be part of the immediate news cycle.

Email

In a forum where "content is king" and the size and quality of one's list is "emperor" the MRP excelled. We grew our subscriber email list (as opposed to simply obtaining lists of email addresses) to more than 100,000 addresses. For reference, in 2002 our list contained 17,000 addresses and in 2004 the list totaled 39,000. More than 25 million emails were sent to MRP's email list (up from 3.5 million just two years ago) providing news articles, message points, detailed campaign information, MRP program information and instructions, and insider information involving the operation of the MRP and Republican campaigns.

Blog

I launched my blog http://migop.blogs.com/blog/ early in 2006 and it quickly became one of the most widely viewed political blogs in the nation. The blog serves as a key source of insider information for GOP campaigns and activists. It is also used as a source by dozens of political reporters in Michigan, Washington D.C, and around the country.

Letters to the Editor

The MRP communications staff generated more than 11,000 "sample" letters to the editor during 2006. Each week more than 250 letters would be generated and distributed to activists across the state, always including the campaigns for governor, US Senate, Secretary of State, attorney General, and state legislature.