GOP Slate Mail/Chase Mail program paid off dividends in 2020 election

Sometimes the big things that political organizations accomplish are in the background away from the spotlight – but they make the difference in helping to deliver victory for their candidates.

And you can’t ignore that the SDGOP had one of it’s best nights ever.

The South Dakota Republican Party’s early voter program continued to be fine-tuned and refined in the 2020 fall election, working to turn out absentee voters whose importance was only elevated in the face of the coronavirus.  This was the mission of State GOP Chair Dan Lederman – to put a Republican message in front of early & absentee voters to supplement every other message they received.

Hitting them with pieces reminding them to vote for Republican candidates, as well as a follow-up mailer chasing them to turn their ballots in, absentee numbers bolstered the Republican opportunities when coupled with strong interest in the process in 2020.

Elections can be won and lost by early voting once those absentee ballots are counted. And the mission is to make sure that those early votes help, rather than hurt.

“Chase mail,”  the sometimes awkward process of sending out material to absentee voters has not always run smoothly. In 2018, literature was hand-stuffed in a big envelope if/when it could be obtained from candidates out of a central mail location. Not only was it expensive, but it was subject to trial and very human errors.

But in 2020 a different tactic was used – the party used a more centralized chase program which didn’t rely on candidates dropping off leftovers being stuffed in large manilla envelopes to be stuffed by a central mail house in time before the recipients voted.   That was old school.

In 2020, the message was direct and tightly coordinated, minimizing the randomness, and delivering a message in a regular, orderly and timely manner.

This was not an election that people could afford to wait around until the last couple of weeks – a fact that was lost on many Democrat candidates. Candidates and the party needed to hit voters early and often to drive a message home – and they did.

With a mail program reminding GOP voters who their candidates were and who needed to be elected along with President Trump, it might not have been big and flashy. But it got the job done.