The combination of working with a consultant who knows what he is doing and a candidate who will listen is a combination for a successful campaign. I have had the opportunity of working with this particular consultant for 8 years. He uses current data, NCOA, as well as having the strategic mindset of writing direct mail based on surveys taken a week before the election.

On April 1, 2008, Eric Gomez defeated an incumbent city council member in Tulsa Oklahoma. Mr. Gomez ran two years ago and lost by 25 votes.

The two issues that were paramount in the district were the creation of conservation districts (that the incumbent spearheaded) that gave residents a say what was done as far as development, and the repair and rebuilding of streets.

We decided to conduct an automated survey to have a better understanding of what voters thought of the issues. With a low budget campaign, as some city council races are we had to make sure that everything we did was right on target.

We surveyed almost 8,000 voters in the district, click here to listen to the Tulsa issue and candidate survey. The survey results told us that out of almost 700 voters surveyed, over 27% supported the creation of these conservation districts, compared with around 13% who opposed it and a whopping 60% who had no opinion at all. The incumbent spearheaded the conservation district concept and we were worried that the incumbent might do something at the end of the campaign that we would not have time to answer. The automated survey was the most cost effective way to find out what the voters were really thinking. The survey also told us that over 61% of the voters wanted the city to devote all available resources to repair and rebuild the streets, surprisingly over 26% said no and 13% had no opinion. The survey also gave us some helpful information as far as how Mr. Gomez was doing. The incumbent was at 20.8%, Mr. Gomez was at 18.9% and the undecided were at 60.3%.

With this information we went to work cross referencing which voter supported Mr. Gomez, who also supported or opposed the conservation districts, as well as the repair and rebuilding of the streets and put a plan in place for GOTV efforts. There is no sense in calling a person asking them to vote for you if you already know they are supporting you opponent! So, we didn't!

A few days prior to the election Eric sent out this message in conjunction with a mail piece click here to listen to the candidate issue message sample.

City officials predicted turnout to be about 13,000 of the 47,000 voters, so we also knew that turnout was going to be the key as it is in any election. The incumbent secured the endorsement of a citywide elected official and so did Mr. Gomez.

Since we had identified our supporters and knew who the undecideds were we sent this message out on election day in the afternoon, click here to listen to election day low turnout message.

Mr. Gomez won this time by 162 votes, (53% to 47%).

Some candidates and consultants do not like to use automated technology for surveys as well as GOTV efforts. In low budget campaigns it can be a determining factor.