Delve CEO Jeff Berkowitz at the RNC on How Trump Can Capitalize on Hillary’s Vulnerabilities and “The Crucial Role of Strong American Leadership in the World.”
Last week, Foster Morss joined the firm as Vice President of Research. A veteran of the RNC, two presidential campaigns, and state government, Foster brings years of experience producing research and policy analysis and turning it into actionable insights for communications strategies.
At Delve, Foster will oversee our team of skilled analysts and deliver clients top quality, in-depth competitive intelligence that provides them a crucial information advantage over other stakeholders. His understanding of the nexus of policy, politics, and communications will be immensely valuable for our clients.
Most recently, Foster was Director of Research and Policy for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s presidential campaign, overseeing the campaign’s rapid response and opposition research efforts as well as assisting with the development of policy proposals and messaging strategies. Previously, he served the same role on Governor Christie’s 2013 reelection campaign and as Deputy Communications Director in the Governor’s official Press and Communications Office. Before that, Foster was Deputy Research Director for the Republican National Committee, a Senior Research Analyst for Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign, and War Room Director at the RNC.
It has already been an exciting year at Delve and Foster’s addition to the firm’s leadership will allow us to better serve our clients as we deliver breakthrough insights. Foster joins a number of other recent additions to our team, including Senior Research Analyst Christina Van Horn and Monitoring Associate Nikki Kirsch, as well as an awesome group of summer interns and new research associates. Christina previously worked for Aegis Strategies and the Tax Foundation. Nikki, who worked in Colorado politics and the state legislature, was most recently in Congressman Ken Buck’s office. Learn more about Delve’s entire team here.
With Donald Trump now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee Democrats are gearing up for one of the bloodiest general election campaigns anyone is likely to see, but the decks are stacked against them more than they think. Delve CEO Jeff Berkowitz outlined exactly why Democrats’ attacks on Donald Trump will prove ineffective for USA Today’s Fredreka Schouten:
Despite his bombastic rhetoric about women’s appearances, Latino immigrants and Muslims, Trump barreled through the Republican primary, in part, because his GOP rivals failed to mount a serious opposition-research effort against him, said veteran Republican strategist Jeff Berkowitz. He oversaw research for the Republican National Committee and for Rudy Giuliani’s 2008 presidential campaign and now runs his own firm in Washington, Delve.
Trump’s GOP opponents treated his candidacy as a “summer fling that would pass,” Berkowitz said. That doesn’t mean Democrats have an easy task ahead, he said.
As Berkowitz has been previously detailed, former GOP primary challengers refused to take Trump seriously and ended up unable to research to define the billionaire to the American voter.
Simultaneously, the likely Democratic standard-bearer Hillary Clinton has already proven woefully ineffective in her attempts to define Bernie Sanders. Unlike the junior Senator from Vermont’s rapid rise to national prominence over the past year, however, Trump has had 14 seasons of primetime television to define himself to American voters.
“You have someone who spent a decade on reality TV being presented as a successful businessperson who was in a position to judge other people on whether they should be in leadership positions as well,” Berkowitz said of Trump’s 14-season run as host of NBC’s The Apprentice and The Celebrity Apprentice shows.“Trying to convince voters now that he is not successful and that he shouldn’t be in a position of leadership and judgment is going to be very, very difficult,” he said.
The impossible problem facing Democrats is that they are armed with a politician who has already displayed difficult in effectively employing opposition research to define her opponent facing down one of the best defined political candidates in history, who also happens to have a knack for defining his opponents.
Check out the full article here.
Birds sing. Dogs bark. Children play. And political pundits make predictions. They just cannot help themselves. It’s a function that comes as naturally to them as breathing. (A GOP communicator I spoke with over a month ago vociferously declared to me, “Donald Trump will not be the Republican nominee.”) Now that a Clinton-Trump 2016 matchup is virtually assured, here’s my advice to the pundits: you don’t always have to pretend you have all the answers. After considering the groundbreaking nature of the 2016 presidential election, the smartest people in politics aren’t making up answers; they’re asking questions.
Here are four things we DON’T KNOW about this election (and likely won’t really be answered until Wednesday, November 9th).
1. Who will win?
A diet of cable news commentators with a sprinkling of opinion columnists would have you believe Hillary Clinton is on her way to trouncing Donald Trump in the general election. The more rational of these observers tend to support the claim by pointing out that, while Clinton is unpopular, Trump is more unpopular. The reality is this is an unprecedented election where both major party candidates have shattered records with their net unfavorability ratings. It certainly seems possible that the messaging of these two campaigns could turn into a proverbial race to the bottom to see who can boost the other’s negative ratings more by Election Day. How that translates into mood, turnout and issue prioritization of the electorate is anyone’s guess.
2. Where will “Bernie or Bust” and “Never Trump” voters go?
The GOP is just beginning the process of unifying around Trump and the Democrats will have to do the same. Some have already discussed the strange possible alliance between Sanders’ base of support and Trump. Likewise, there are segments of the Republican Party who have vowed #NeverTrump who may never fall in line. Keep in mind, the Koch brothers have refused to back any candidate thus far, and while they have traditionally backed Republican candidates, their true ideology is far more libertarian. It remains to be seen how both groups go about consolidating support behind their nominees and what degree of success they find, but securing the support of the disaffected factions left over from their fractious primaries will prove crucial in November. The ultimate wildcard, for instance, could be the Libertarian Party making the politically savvy move of nominating former Republican New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson and him qualifying for the general election debates.
3. Should we trust polling?
For the reasons listed above, polling may prove especially unreliable in this election. Pollsters may also find themselves scrambling for updated and untested polling models to reflect the huge questions of turnout 2016 poses. The Republican primaries and caucuses brought out droves of new voters, all of whom may not be accounted for in existing polling models. All of this comes at a time when the polling industry is already defending its credibility after failures to accurately predict electoral outcomes in 2012 and 2014.
4. How will these candidates impact other campaigns?
Much of the supposed conventional wisdom seems to suggest Trump’s unfavorability at the top of the Republican ticket is going to leading to the GOP losing the Senate and possibly the House of Representatives. This fails to take into account that other piece of political conventional wisdom: all politics is local. No one can predict the variations of split tickets that may be cast at the ballot box in this election. Keep in mind, as just one example, the same Indiana electorate that backed Donald Trump also nominated Mitch McConnell-backed Todd Young for the U.S. Senate over House Freedom Caucus member Martin Stutzman. Some Republican candidates have personalities and histories with their constituents that overtake any “nationalization” of their race. Other Republican candidates may actually be helped by Trump’s nomination because of the demographics of their specific districts or states. The bottom line is that it’s presumptuous to simply predict that Trump will cost Republicans the Senate and hurt all candidates down ticket.
Election season is a lot like March Madness basketball. Every season it comes around and something unpredictable happens and everyone proclaims this is the truly paradigm shattering year. This is usually hyperbole, but every once in a while it’s actually true. This is one of those years. That’s why news consumers should view all predictions with an extra dose of skepticism. If your friends ask you what you think is going to happen between now and Election Day, the only smart answer is: “I don’t know.”
Television advertising has consistently proven to be one of the more effective vehicles for political candidates to communicate messages and ideas directly to the voting public. These can take a variety of forms, but some of the most successful are contrast ads. The purpose of these spots is to highlight portions of an opponent’s political or professional record that voters may find the most distasteful. These attacks can be sharply critical, hard-hitting, and even aggressive; but what they cannot be is false.
For evidence of what happens when a campaign engages in poorly researched, blatantly misleading negative attacks look no further than Donna Edwards’ disastrous campaign against Chris Van Hollen in the recent Democratic primary for Maryland’s open U.S. Senate seat. During the highly contentious fight, a super PAC backing Edwards’ campaign ran an adclaiming Van Hollen had worked with the National Rifle Association to craft a loophole in gun regulation legislation. The Edwards campaign echoed the claim in an ad linking the shooting of a 3-year-old girl to Van Hollen’s “backroom deal” with the NRA.
It turns out the alleged deal was really more likely a miscalculation by legislative staff that had nothing to do with gun control. The bill in question sought to create greater reporting requirements of politically active nonprofit groups. After the measure drew criticism from larger political nonprofits, including the NRA and AFL-CIO, Van Hollen wrote in an exemption for organizations with over 1 million members. It just so happened that the NRA was the only group that met this threshold. Upon realizing this, Van Hollen promptly broadened the exemption to include groups with over 500,000 members. Edwards also suggested she led the charge in opposition to the bill over the supposed NRA carve-out and eventually succeeded in killing the bill. In reality the legislation died when Republicans took control of the House in 2010 and the House declined to take it up.
Had the super PAC and campaign checked their facts before running the ads, they could have avoided the backlash that followed their release. The Washington Post gave the claims “three Pinocchio’s” (out of a possible four). The White House requested the super PAC’s ad be pulled for using images of President Obama that were “misleading.” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid criticized Edwards and the super PAC for “engaging in politics at its very worst.” Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi also criticized the super PAC ad calling for it to be pulled form the airwave. Edwards’ ads were so heavily disputed, Van Hollen even cut his own response ad highlighting the criticism.
Considering Edwards’ staggering loss to Van Hollen and the substantial public criticism her misleading ads garnered, she should become yet another cautionary tale political consultants and campaign professionals tell their candidates when preparing attacks on opponents. It is the thoughtfulness and factual nature of the content that separates a true contrast ad from the kind of misleading negative advertising the public will turn away from and vote against.
Last week we published our analysis of the rule that could lead to chaos in the Republican primary process. Delve CEO Jeff Berkowitz spoke with the New York Times on how this rule may impact Republicans looking to defeat Donald Trump in the coming months:
“‘The best case scenario for the Never Trump backers is to throw the convention into disarray, either by ensuring Trump does not reach the eight-state threshold so the rules have to be changed, or by changing the rules even if he does,’ said Jeff Berkowitz, a former Republican National Committee official.”
Jeff also spoke with MSNBC’s Ari Melber on potential rules changes:
“Jeff Berkowitz, who worked three conventions as an RNC official, says there would be a revolt if the convention rules are changed simply to stop Trump. Asked about [Ben] Ginsberg’s description of the temporary rules, Berkowitz laughed, saying ‘that’s right from a legal standpoint, but there would be a huge eruption at anything seen as the establishment stealing it from the rightful winner.’”
Other media outlets and journalists highlighted Delve’s analysis as well, including CBS Political Director and Face the Nation moderator John Dickerson, Washington Examiner Managing Editor Philip Klein, Texas Monthly Senior Editor Erica Grieder, and CNBC data reporter Mark Fahey. Our original Medium post was also listed in the Financial Times’ Alphaville Blog morning news briefing and The Browser daily news report.
MSNBC political analyst Elise Jordan highlighted Delve CEO Jeff Berkowitz’s latest thoughts on deploying opposition research in the 2016 Republican Presidential primary.
When the din of the debate reaches its height, you would expect an opposition researcher to be smiling broadly, but last night, I was deeply troubled. Last night, we saw the research begin to drop on Donald Trump and all I could think was, “Where was all of this material six months ago?” Considering the treasure trove of opposition research a life like Trump’s inevitably accrues, how could it possibly have taken this long to really begin using it in earnest? With all the GOP hand-wringing over Trump’s ascendancy, what could have possibly stymied this process? What the hell went wrong?
As someone who has been involved in multiple presidential and other major campaign research operations, I have some answers to these questions that help explain why I was so deeply troubled.
Last night’s debate exposed a monumental failure in the Republican Presidential campaigns, so the question becomes did the researchers fail the campaign leadership or did the campaign leadership fail the researchers? I would argue the latter. From the beginning, these campaigns have not taken research seriously. Certainly not as seriously as it has been taken in the past. No Republican presidential campaign has hired and empowered a research director as a senior campaign official or built the research teams and resources needed to dig deep into their opponents’ backgrounds and build a narrative against them.
From the beginning last winter, the campaigns approached opposition research as a passive aggressive prisoner’s dilemma, hoping, praying and assuming that someone was whittling their spoon into a shank so that they would not have to do it. More than one campaign operative argued to me (and others), “It’s such a big field, there’s no point doing the research because Candidate X’s team is going to have to take out Candidate Y anyways.” Others argued a super PAC would come along to save the day.
Whether it was wishful thinking, a squirreling of campaign dollars, or a lack of appreciation for the strategic advantage opposition research can provide, the result was that none of the campaigns put in the time or effort to dig deep into the opponents — least of all Donald Trump, who was dismissed as a summer fling, then a fall affair, and then… oh my, he’s winning the nomination.
None of them acknowledged the problem, and none of them took action when it would have made a huge (yuge?) difference. It is most likely too late, but last night Marco Rubio showed how it should have been done a long time ago. The age old wisdom parents have given their bullied children: punch back and expose how weak the bully is. Throughout the fall, hoping Trump would fall by someone else’s shank or his own doing, the campaigns thought they could then pick up his supporters. All that time was wasted while Trump became a movement.
Like any candidate for the Presidency, Trump should be held accountable for his record and this vetting process should have begun months ago. Now that we are at this point in the primary process, the Democrats and mainstream media will gleefully do the vetting for us in the general election. The reason it did not begin earlier is that even once the campaigns realized Trump would not fade, they did not have the research infrastructure in place to sound the alarm and fire back.
It is complete and utter political malpractice that Republican voters have had to wait ten full debates, four primary contests, and an entire summer and fall of campaigning for any candidate to put together and actually use serious opposition research against Donald Trump. Even if one is a Trump supporter, this fact should be deeply concerning. Trying and testing our candidates in the primary process better prepares them for defeating the Democratic nominee in the fall.
This failure is a direct result of the low priority these campaigns placed on their research operations. For proof, look no further than the campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. They show that just seven of the 17 Republicans campaigns made any expenditures on research and they averaged far less than $200,000 spent on research, even when accounting for research staff salaries. That is an inexcusable rounding error for what should be serious national campaigns.
In 2008, when I served as Mayor Giuliani’s campaign research director, my peers on the other primary campaigns and I were given seats at the table as part of the campaign’s senior leadership. We were involved in and helped inform the broad strategy and messaging, which allowed each candidate to be better served. All the campaigns had experienced leaders in research who had the reputation and understanding necessary to help drive strategy.
In 2016, none of the campaigns have (or had) a known and respected research director as a senior campaign staffer who sits at the decision making table. None of the campaigns invested the time and money in deep research that they should have, relying too much on rapid response paper pushing. None of the campaigns, therefore, were in a position to be proactive when it would have mattered.
If early money is like yeast, early oppo is like gunpowder. Stored well and carefully deployed at the right time, it can win you the race. Let it sit too long and it may explode on you, or not at all. The failure of the 2016 Republican campaigns to appreciate this reality has led us to this moment. And to my depression.
With the FEC year-end reports for all federally registered political organizations due this Sunday, pundits and politicos will quickly begin to prognosticate over the true meaning behind the numbers. When it comes to Presidential campaigns, the top line fundraising totals always get the most attention but, in reality, there is little correlation between raising the most money and actually winning delegates.
So if the top line numbers alone aren’t good indicators of a campaign’s likelihood of success, what is? Here are four things you probably won’t see in headlines, but they’re what experts will be looking at to see which candidates are truly going to rise to the top of the field.
1. Campaign Spending
How a campaign is spending their money may very well be the best measure of their operational efficiency. Every dollar raised should be optimally spent to generate votes, volunteers or more dollars, and the stated purpose of campaign expenditures can make it clear whether a campaign is following that tenet. Large expenditures on ambiguous outside consultants, ritzy office space, high-cost low-return fundraising and anything else that won’t help get that candidate’s voters to the polls should set off alarm bells.
2. Airtime Reserved — And Paid For?
This point and the previous one go hand-in-hand, since television airtime is one of the most expensive items on any campaign’s grocery list. Since most campaigns reserve airtime far in advance, it deserves a special examination. See if the campaign has paid for the airtime that its claimed to have reserved. If they have, it shows a level of financial security and confidence about the state of play, but if they haven’t, there’s still at least one very large outstanding bill somewhere in HQ that may not ever get paid.
3. Debt
Speaking of unpaid bills, how much debt a campaign carries will help show how well they are budgeting and spending their money. Did the campaign manager shove a bunch of invoices in a drawer until the day after the quarter closed? Looking at the debt will help you see past those flashy Q4 totals every campaign will be spinning and understand how much real cash-on-hand they have. It can even become a quick political attack — liberal candidates with large campaign debts can be attacked for lacking fiscal restraint while conservative campaigns could be accused of not living up to the principles they are espousing.
4. Burn Rate
Burn rate means how quickly a campaign is spending the funds it is raising (usually talked about as a percentage of money spent vs. how much they’ve raised). Take a minute to look at this figure to see if a campaign is in free fall, spending money faster than it can raise. One way or another, this primary season is likely to be as long and drawn out as any we’ve seen, so having enough money to survive will be fundamental to any successful strategy.
When the reports are released Sunday night, there will be a lot of numbers and figures to look at but not all of them will provide as much insight as they may seem. If you take a look at these items first, you’ll be one step ahead of the boilerplate coverage, and you’ll know as much as anyone about where the campaigns actually stand.