“Winning Connections was an important partner in mobilizing Ohio’s working families to vote Yes on Issue Three. Their interactive, one-on-one conversations connected the measure to creating new jobs in our state loud and clearly, driving up union turnout and helping to pull out a hard-fought victory.”
—Tim Burga, Chief of Staff, Ohio AFL-CIO
In recent years, gaming initiatives had failed in Ohio on four straight attempts. In 2009, Ohio Jobs and Growth ran a Yes on Issue 3 campaign to build and open casinos in four locations around the state. Bringing casinos to Ohio would boost the economy by creating tens of thousands of construction and service sector jobs. Nonetheless, the issue divided Ohio’s political leadership and powerful interest groups opposed gaming.
Winning Connections was part of the Yes on Issue 3 campaign right from the start. We worked as a strategic partner on voter targeting and message development. We started early and used interactive persuasion and mobilization calls to convince and then hold onto our supporters even during a barrage of negative attacks from the opposition. We used long, multi-part, conversational calls to drive up voter turn-out among people in union households. Winning Connections’ ran programs that focused on vote by mail and election day voting and complemented the message that the campaign was trying to get through in television, radio, and direct mail advertisements.
The campaign was victorious with 53% of the vote. Turn-out among the voters that Winning Connections targeted dramatically outperformed the overall electorate.