Campaign Precinct Strategy for 2024 Primary

Robert West | July 20, 2023

I had the honor of speaking at a couple of “Hand Count Roadshow” events in and around Houston this week. Prior to this we saw the movie, “Sound of Freedom.” I have been meeting and speaking with people on many issues recently but no matter how important the issue, they are all merely the symptoms of the disease.

The disease is not only the career politicians but the voters who blindly trust them just because they have an “R” or “D” by their name.

Imagine you had a business and ignored it for 40 or 50 years. When you went back, the shelves and the cash register would be empty, the place would be falling apart and they might not even let you into your own building. This is the point we are at as a nation. We are the owner/operators, but we have not been very good at it and the public servants think they are in charge.

To cure the disease, we must rid ourselves of all career politicians in the primary elections. Changing out only one or two employees at a time will not work, the culture will remain the same. These political class/families like being in charge, they are used to being in charge and with a majority they will change laws to remain in charge.

I’m offering a campaign precinct strategy for the 2024 primary election that can begin here in Texas or any state across the country.

Clean Sweep in 2024 Texas Primary

The good news in Texas is that 2024 is the perfect year for a clean sweep. Yes, Abbott has $60M and can play Whack-A-Mole if you challenge one of his pet legislators but $60M is not enough to play that game with 60 or 70 challengers. Trump said he would target anyone that voted for the Paxton impeachment, this is a de facto endorsement for anyone running against them in the primaries, one that could be turned into an actual endorsement.

Legislators that voted for Phelan AFTER he announced he would seat Democratic chairs, that voted to advance gambling in Texas and that voted to raise the legal age to buy a gun to 21 are all subject to censure by the Precinct Chairs within their districts. Censure can cause a politician to resign before the primary like Chris Paddie last cycle or draw multiple challengers like it is currently doing with Congressman Tony Gonzales in South Texas.

The other advantages challengers have this year is that Abbott is looking at using that campaign fund to buy his way into a cabinet level position in two years so even less of that money can be used to defend his allies in Texas.

Recruit and Run Multiple Candidates

We need to recruit good people to run and support good people that step up. If we cannot find serious candidates in certain races, then we need to find, “paper candidates” A paper candidate just gathers the signatures or pays the money to get on the ticket. They need not do anything else. When a paper candidate and actual candidate registers there is no way to tell them apart. The establishment might give money to a race where it does them no good, which means they cannot donate that same money to an actual race.

The other thing we can do is to run multiple candidates in these races. If you want to get rid of a RINO this is one of the best tactics to use. Imagine running a young candidate, an older candidate, a female candidate and a minority candidate. More candidates will attract more people that normally do not participate in the primary. By increasing the total number of voters, it means the incumbent must come up with the same number of new voters just to keep the same percentage. Each challenger can take a certain number of votes that would otherwise go to the incumbent in addition to the new voters they bring into the race, again the incumbent would have to add new voters to replace those they lose.

The ONLY goal when taking out a RINO in the primary is to get them below the 50% mark and force a runoff. Incumbents usually lose a runoff, after all more than 50% of voters have already voted against them.

The Incumbent and Four Attackers

During the primary, the incumbent has four people attacking them and must attack four people, the challengers need only attack and defend against the incumbent. If the incumbent attacks one challenger on being too young, it helps their older candidate and alienates younger voters. If your four challengers live in four different sections of the district, they need only campaign and put signs in a very small area to outmatch the incumbent. The incumbent however, must plaster signs and campaign in the entire district. This tactic destroys their financial advantage.

Once the primary is over, all the challengers can fold their campaigns together to take out the RINO. With one opponent, the incumbent wins 90+ percent of the time. In a runoff election incumbents lose almost 90% of the time. The best thing about the multi-candidate tactic? There is no way to defend against it other than to spend overwhelming amounts of cash and there is simply not enough cash to do this in 40 or 60 races.

Working in Your Precinct Strategy

Finally, there is the precinct strategy. In each State Representative District in Texas there are about 67 voting precincts. If the campaigns were to get one volunteer in each precinct to run for Precinct Chair and concentrate on their precinct then the incumbent would face 268 campaigns, four in each precinct. These precinct chair candidates could ask people to show up for the primary and “Oh, while you are there could you vote for my friend for state rep?” People in the GOP cannot take sides in the primary but remember, candidates for precinct chair and your precinct team are not part of the GOP as they have not been elected and it is the very best way to get out the vote.

Now, you can do these things and still lose but think about what the effects would be. Turnout is up, all the precinct chair positions are filled and your voter base is energized. The next primary is never more than a few months away and those precinct chairs can continue to build teams and educate voters.

All this time you are building the party and attempting to replace politicians with patriots. You are working on curing the disease, not treating the symptoms.

Robert West

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