BlueNationStrategies.com @BlueNationStrategies
BLUE NATION STRATEGIES is a woman-owned and
woman-run firm with experience in over 40 states.
About Us JEANNIE CARLSON, the Founding Partner
of Blue Nation Strategies, began her career while still in college, as
Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez’s Deputy Finance Director. In 2008, she was on the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign in four states — Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, and Indiana. She served as the deputy campaign manager for the New York Suffolk County Coordinated Campaign in 2011, winning all 10 targeted races. Jeannie has developed creative, award-winning mail programs from Hawaii to New Hampshire and from Arizona to Florida. Her past clients include Senator Harry Reid, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Everytown for Gun Safety, Planned Parenthood, EMILY’s List, End Citizens United, the National Education Association, the Ohio Education Association, the Pennsylvania State Senate and House Caucuses, the Maryland State House Caucus, the Colorado State House Caucus, and the League of Conservation Voters, to name just a few.
SAM NITZ is a partner at Fireside Campaigns,
a majority gay-owned political consulting firm. Sam and Fireside are trusted partners of Blue Nation, working closely with the Blue Nation team to develop sophisticated, data-driven targeting plans for the mail program. Sam has over 18 years of experience in message strategy, targeting, and managing programs for clients at all levels of the ballot. As Deputy Independent Expenditure Director at EMILY’s List, Sam ran one of the largest and most cutting-edge digital media expenditures in progressive history to engage and turnout Millennial women. Since then, Sam has become a leading national expert in voting policy, created innovative visualization dashboards, and advised Everytown, DCCC, DLCC, and WOMEN VOTE! independent expenditures. A leading voice in Progressive and Democratic targeting, Sam has trained hundreds of operatives across the country in messaging and analytics strategy, including for such organizations as the League of Conservation Voters, NDI, Lillian’s List, EMILY’s List, the DCCC, and the New Organizing Institute.
Why Us Jeannie and Sam have worked with countless congressional candidates and independent expenditures throughout the years, including the DCCC IE in 2020. They know: F irst and foremost, that IEs should do no harm That the IE must often carry the negative message Where to find, how to read, and how to craft public messages T hat incumbents, especially in midterms, need localized messages They know because they have been there on both sides of the wall for multiple cycles and have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly.
We believe in a full-service model at Blue Nation. Election cycles are longer than ever before, and media cycles are shorter. Independent expenditures need more support in the day-to-day execution of a campaign, especially in a midterm, when campaigns and organizations have to fight even harder for resources, staff, and attention. We make ourselves available to assist with strategy and execution, and generally advising based on on the latest advancements in modeling, printing, mailing, texting, and other technologies that we are seeing in the spaces we work in every day. Our full-service model combined with our team’s large-project production experience, digital experience, and data/technology experience means that our clients receive the best of both worlds — the attention of a boutique shop with the execution and cost savings of a large firm. We work closely with you to stay on schedule and under budget, communicating regularly with staff, printers, mail houses, and the post office. And lastly, with changes to voting policies in so many swing states, the voting policy and timing rulebooks from 2020 have completely changed and need to be rewritten. Whether it’s thinking about timing waves of mail, when digital messaging should change tracks as people are starting to early vote, or how best to message in ranked-choice voting states, we have not just seen the research — we have experience working around those barriers — and winning.
OUR WORK — DCCC IE 2020 WORK In 2020, we created six pieces for the IE in NE-02. The goal here was simple — Omaha area women need to read: Don Bacon opposes abortion without exceptions, even to prevent death of the mother or in cases of rape or incest. He voted to defund Planned Parenthood and deny women access to cancer screenings and birth control. Bacon also voted against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, which would expand protections for survivors of domestic abuse and stalking.
NE-2 MAIL PROGRAM We mailed To
6 pieces
42,205 housholds
In targeted State Senate Districts
in and around Omaha end of September and Mid October Between the
Protecting the Majority in 2022 Beyond direct mail and general strategic consulting, Jeannie and Sam’s combined experience can provide advice and expertise on a wide range of campaign tactics and program innovation. From navigating voting policy changes and impacts on a program, and working to implement creative and impactful new programs to engage, persuade, and turn out the voters we need to win in tough districts. Jeannie has been navigating policy changes and how those changes impact the way we communicate with and target voters by mail for over a decade. Sam has been living and breathing voting policy with clients since 2018 and brings a deep understanding of both what changes have been impacted nationally and how those might impact programmatic efforts and our approach on the independent expenditure side – from timing, and targeting to messaging, and creative.
Additionally, Sam knows firsthand what the environment can be like the first year after a Democratic president is elected at the DCCC. Having served as the Deputy Targeting Director at the DCCC on the hard side in 2010, Sam knows firsthand what dynamics and considerations must be accounted for heading into this year’s midterm. From reading polls to refining audiences and looking for warning signs for our incumbents that might not be on the incumbent protect watchlist ahead of time — Sam is ready to leverage his experience for the DCCC IE targeting team this year.
CONCLUSION Thank you for taking the time to review our proposal! Please contact us with any questions. Jeannie Carlson 714-875-2857 or Jeannie@BlueNationStrategies.com Sam Nitz 202-276-6499 or Sam@BlueNationStrategies.com
@BlueNationStrategies