Case Studies

Testimonials

“Unlike many phone vendors, Winning Connections is a political consulting firm first and a telephone firm second. You… make sure that we are doing everything we can to win.”
— Robin Winston, Executive Director, IN Democratic Party

“You were quick – I gave you the final go-ahead on Wednesday morning, your callers were calling that night, and within five days your team had made a quarter of a million phone calls.”
— Ron Malone, Director, Ohio AFSCME

“It is [your] responsiveness and attention to detail that makes your work so valuable to us. From the comments we are getting from the legislators, they are getting the message too!”
— KC Grist, MS Health Advocacy Program

“Your strategic advice on using voter history to find target voters was invaluable, your scripts powerful and your calls effective… you helped end our 7 years of election drought.”
— Ross Dunlap, Superintendent, Eastland School Dist., Ohio

Ohio School Bond

Only six months after citizens of Worthington, OH, rejected a bond measure to fund their struggling school district, education advocates got a second chance to pass the measure in a special election. This time, they called Winning Connections for help.

Winning Connections strategically targeted and mobilized those voters most receptive to the measure. We found that the key was to avoid expending resources on absentee voters, a group which had overwhelmingly rejected the previous bond proposal.

We made 7,000 targeted persuasion calls into the district, and it made the difference. The phone program was the only additional element in the campaign this time around, and the results were astounding. What had been a 14-point defeat became a 6-point margin of victory.

Washington SEIU

SEIU in Washington State was unhappy with several key votes of State Assembly Majority Leader Helen Sommers, so the union decided to back an untested community activist, Alice Woldt, in the primary.

Winning Connections’ first round of calls identified more than 18,000 voters. We then delivered a series of persuasion calls to undecideds and mobilized supporters to cast their ballots – by mail and in-person. In the persuasion rounds, we cited votes where Sommers had supported corporate interests at the expense of working people.

Our efforts to reach every undecided voter with a persuasion message proved decisive: Woldt came from out of nowhere to within inches of unseating a powerful 32-year incumbent, sending a strong message from our client, SEIU, to Sommers and the leadership in Olympia.

Florida Gaming Initiative

In 2004, Floridians across the state voted on Amendment 4, which would allow Miami-Dade and Broward counties to vote on whether to have slot machines at existing gaming facilities. Tax revenues from the slots would then be used to fund education statewide. In this contest, the main challenge was not in getting voters to go to the polls or mail in their ballots. Since Florida was a presidential battleground state, we knew that people would vote in record numbers. The primary obstacles to passage of Amendment 4 were the complexity of the message and ballot drop-off: people voting at the top of the ticket and then neglecting to vote on the ballot initiatives. So Winning Connections targeted voters in precincts with a history of early voting and crafted strong persuasion messages emphasizing Amendment 4’s potential boon to Florida schools.

Our strategy paid off. Even though Amendment 4 lost significant ground in the closing days of the campaign, the measure passed by one percentage point because of the big lead we helped build up among early voters.

Protect Your Healthcare Coalition

For the last two years, Winning Connections has assisted a coalition of consumer groups, health care providers and health advocacy organizations in their fight against an expansion of federal Association Health Plans. We were opposed by the White House, the NFIB and the National Chamber of Commerce on this issue.

To overcome such powerful adversaries, we developed an integrated telephone, direct mail and online advocacy effort. We targeted lawmakers in sixteen states, generating more than 200,000 personalized appeals to targeted officials in 2003.

Using an integrated database from our field resources, we adjusted and updated our outbound calling program and messages, successfully mobilizing supporters each time the opposition made another push for the legislation.

Illinois Crisis and Pharmacy Care

In late 2000, Gov. Bob Ryan cut the Medicaid reimbursement rate for prescription drugs by $42 million, which had a devastating effect on pharmacies in the state. The Illinois Crisis in Pharmacy Care Coalition hired Winning Connections to help remedy the situation.

Our goal was to push state legislators to lobby the governor to restore Medicaid funds. We set up a toll-free number, which was publicized by mail. Our representatives advised callers on talking points and then connected them with their state lawmakers. Later, we expanded the program by manning the phones with bi-lingual representatives. We also initiated an outbound patch-through program to recruit more pharmacists into the program.

We patched-through over 1,500 people to their legislators, helping the Coalition to restore $22.5 million to the Medicaid budget.

Senator Maria Cantwell

In 2000, Winning Connections helped Senator Maria Cantwell get through a tough primary and general election. We made over 300,000 live calls in the primary and general elections with tailored messages based on gender, age, and vote history. Our high-volume, individualized messages made a critical difference in the outcome. After the election and a recount, Maria Cantwell had defeated incumbent Senator Slade Gorton by 2, 229 votes.

Senator Mark Pryor

The Democrats’ lone upset in 2002 in the Senate was achieved by Arkansas’s Mark Pryor. The Arkansas Coordinated Campaign hired Winning Connections for a series of calling programs to maximize Pryor turnout. We made identification calls to targeted precincts to identify a key group of new supporters, and we followed up with live and recorded calls to get supporters to the polls. The result was that Mark Pryor beat the odds and unseated the incumbent Senator Tim Hutchinson.