Director’s Cut in Kentucky
Join Wednesday’s Office Hours with David Eichenbaum, admaker to the overperformers - including Gov. Andy Beshear
How can Democratic candidates win over Republican voters?
A documentary focused on this question could star David Eichenbaum, a former actor who moved behind the camera to create the ads defining the biggest overperformers of today’s Democratic Party.
Join us Wednesday, November 8th at 12pm ET via Zoom for a Centrist School Office Hours with David Eichenbaum - register HERE.
Winning Red Voters in the Bluegrass State
Just 36% of Kentuckians voted for Joe Biden in 2020, and this year just 31% approve of the Democratic President.
But 43% of Republicans in Kentucky approve of Democratic Governor Andy Beshear. That’s not 43% of all voters - that’s of Republicans. And 30% of Republicans plan to vote for Beshear in today’s election.
Politico’s Jonathan Martin recently went to Kentucky to cover the race, with an eye towards future presidential material:
If Beshear sounds disciplined, on-message and focused entirely on his state, well, you’re onto something.
Beshear’s strength stems mostly from the perception that the governor is capable and decent
“He’s not ‘Governor Beshear’ — he’s Andy to the vast majority of people. And you’re not going to change how they think of him.”
National media is all over the Beshear story - The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, etc. - but this is more than a Man-Bites-Dog story.
This is the story of how to protect democracy: by practicing it. Listen to voters, tell a story that moves them, and win in places written off by the analysts who overhype polarization.
Achieving Escape Velocity
One of our first-ever posts was about David Eichenbaum. We did not name him, but we wrote it about him. In “Reaching Escape Velocity”, we noted:
The increasingly toxic Democratic brand is an anchor weighing down candidates in reddish districts. The force of a party label seems like a law of nature akin to gravity, bringing candidates — even those whose background can appeal to traditional GOP voters — back down to earth.
The exceptions to this rule are familiar to our readers: Jared Golden and Joe Manchin on the center-left; Susan Collins and blue-state Governors like Larry Hogan and Charlie Baker on the center-right.
While most candidates perform within a few points of their party’s standard bearers, these candidates do not just split a few tickets.
They shatter them.
In 2018, Joe Manchin won more than one in five Trump voters in West Virginia while Charlie Baker won about one in three Clinton voters.
There is increasing recognition of the Democrats’ brand challenges. However, little attention is paid towards understanding how certain candidates are able to not only eke out a few swing voters, but to build brands that connect deeply and distinctly from the national party label.
Faced with the law of gravity, these candidates achieve escape velocity.
Scientists know how to calculate escape velocity, it’s easy:
(where G is the universal gravitational constant)
Escaping from Earth’s surface requires a speed of 25,020 MPH.
Escaping from the Democratic Party brand appears more complex — there is no clear scientific formula. But if Bezos can go to space and Musk can reach orbit, we should be able to get at least a rudimentary understanding of how to achieve the brand needed to replicate those who have already proven it is possible.
David has the national resume of a Democratic brand-building guru in places where it matters, in elections where it mattered: communications director for the DNC for Bill Clinton’s re-election campaign, admaker for the Obama re-election SuperPAC.
But it is in states where Democrats lost the presidential that he demonstrated lessons the party needs to win consistent majorities.
These hard-won lessons are not just in Kentucky - they are also found in West Virginia, Iowa and Montana.
Also, this is personal: it was David who first introduced the Welcome team co-founders. The Welcome team’s DNA is infused with this question of how to win over swing voters, and how to understand the lessons of the practitioners who prove what is possible.
Join us on Wednesday, November 8th at 12pm ET via Zoom for a Centrist School Office Hours with David Eichenbaum - register HERE.