Major problems with Democratic Party emails

Update, 1st of July: Sara Benincasa has an interesting take on these emails that is worth reading.

Political emails are a strange animal. Over the years I have received a lot of them in support of US candidates or goals (as many other David Barretts routinely mistake my email address for theirs, this predates even my move here). These emails are almost universally bad.

As a bit of background, I’m one of the co-founders of [Intercom], which is often used for marketing purposes in companies. I left the company about three and a half years ago. I did not work in marketing myself, so am not an expert by any means, but some of these mistakes are so rudimentary they’re hard to miss.

The stakes

Given that…

Many in the Republican Party [are actively seeking to overturn the next presidential election] in the case where their candidate loses.
Several elected Republican officials [publicly espouse the racist, anti-semitic replacement theory].
The Republican Part is lapsing into [an embrace of authoritarianism].
Republican state legislators aim to deny reproductive rights across the country, including with new laws banning abortion that do not except cases of rape, incest, or where the life of the mother is threatened ([including ectopic pregnancies,] which are the leading cause of death of mothers in the first trimester, cannot be re-implanted in the uterus, and in all but a handful of cases ever are non-viable).
Transgender people across America are being targeted for abuse, including two states banning transgender participation in school sports, where there is only one transgender athlete in each state. Ohio’s is particularly egregious, [where child athletes may have their genitals inspected by a physician if suspected of being transgender].
The chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Rick Scott, has advanced [an insane 11-point plan] that would raise taxes on the poor, swamp Congress with reviewing all laws five years after they’ve been passed, completely destroy the American economy… I could go on. It’s also racist on multiple levels. For example, the plan states on its summary page “We welcome those who want to join us in building the American dream, immigrants who want to be Americans, not change America.” In other words: “If you don’t like it here, why don’t you go back to where you came from?” Go fuck yourself, Senator Scott.

…and many more pressing issues, it is important that the Democratic Party (the only organization that has a chance of stopping them in the short term) steps up to the plate.

In many ways, they are not. Here, I will focus on one small part: emails I’ve received from them that show pretty fundamental mistakes and missed opportunities.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee

I unsubscribed from these emails eight months ago (having never actually subscribed to them) so these problems may have been addressed by now. Still, a review of these emails is valuable in understanding, at the very least, the issues at the time.

These emails are primarily links to “surveys”. That word is in quotes for reasons that will soon become obvious. Let’s look at the example flow of one email:

Subject: They could dismantle Roe v. Wade FOREVER

This alerts the voter to an urgent matter, a technique used in most of their emails. One would hope that this dire news would lead to some sort of suggested action the voter could take!

The body of the email begins:

BREAKING via ABC News: “Justices to directly reconsider the landmark precedent in Roe v. Wade”

The conservative Supreme Court majority will hear a direct challenge to reproductive rights just weeks from now. There’s no time to waste, David -- we need to know where you stand:

Do you think the Supreme Court should uphold Roe v. Wade?

(Buttons for Yes and No are shown here)

The buttons link to a survey. It’s important to note that nowhere in this email is a reason given for why the DSCC needs to know where the voter stands on this issue, which is another theme common to their emails.

The email continues:

David, Roe v. Wade has never been in greater danger.

FIRST: Texas passed an extreme anti-choice law that places $10,000 bounties on almost anyone exercising their constitutional right to an abortion.

THEN: The right-wing majority on the Supreme Court refused to stop this devastating law from going into effect.

NOW: The Supreme Court is preparing to hear arguments in a case that could officially wipe out Roe v. Wade -- forever.

David, fifty years of precedent are at stake -- we’ve got to stand up for our rights before it’s too late. This case is only a few weeks away, so please let us know NOW:

Do you think the Supreme Court should uphold Roe v. Wade?

(Buttons for Yes and No are shown here)

Thank you, Team DSCC

Instead of relying on the initial paragraph to sufficiently convey the importance and urgency of the issue, they break the issue down further into a first, then, now sequence. This is good copy, at least to do that job.

Still, absolutely nothing ties that yes or no question into this copy. Why are they asking for this information?

Clicking either “Yes” or “No” takes you to the survey. Here are the questions, which are presented one at a time:

Do you agree that we can’t go back to the days before Roe v. Wade? Answers are Yes or No.
How concerned are you by the Supreme Court’s decision not to block the six-week abortion ban in Texas? Answers are (Extremely/Very/Somewhat/Not at all) concerned.
In a new case that’s about to be argued, more than 200 Republican senators and House members are asking the Supreme Court to explicitly overrule Roe v. Wade -- even though a huge majority of Americans want Roe to remain the law of the land. How worried are you that the conservative majority on the Supreme Court will do the GOP’s bidding and overturn Roe? Answers are (Extremely/Very/Somewhat/Not at all) concerned.
One thing is crystal clear -- our reproductive rights are on the ballot in 2022. Holding our Democratic Senate majority will have a MONUMENTAL impact on Americans' freedom to make their own health care decisions. How important is it to you for Democrats to defend our majority next fall? Answers are (Extremely/Very/Somewhat/Not at all) important.
Whether it's through passing new laws or confirming pro-choice justices, the Senate majority will be crucial to protecting reproductive freedoms. Will you make a donation of $5 or more now to ensure we defend our Democratic majority and uphold our reproductive rights? Well here we go.

The apparent intent of these emails is to convince the voter to donate money to the DSCC. However, it does so via trickery. In the email, you are not asked to donate money. For all but the last question of the survey, you are not asked to donate money. Only once the survey is complete are you asked to donate.

Revealing the purpose at this stage feels a little deflating. Surely, it must often lead to voters feeling misled, and like all of their answers up until now count for naught. To their credit, the survey does transmit each answer back to the DSCC, but I have no idea if they actually look at the results.

Even question four, which states that “our reproductive rights are on the ballot in 2022,” does not explain how Democrats intend to protect these rights. Not only is there trickery involved, but it’s not even a good sales pitch.

I’m sure that these emails do generate donations for the DSCC, but at what cost? The image the emails and surveys together convey is of an organization that will ask you for your opinions, but doesn’t care what they actually are, and then asks you for money.

I’ll go into this further in the roundup. But there is an organization that does an even worse job.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee

Hoo boy, there’s a lot to dig into here. I’ve broken the tactics into a few different categories.

Asking for input, not money (and then asking for money)

Some emails present themselves as not asking for your money, but the linked survey then makes it clear that they are asking for your money.

This has all the problems of the surveys from the DSCC, where what seems to be the real purpose of the surveys is revealed at the last page, but with an extra twist to make it worse: they explicitly tell you that they’re not doing something, and then they do the thing they say there aren’t going to do! Why would lying seem like a good idea in a political email?

The worst of these was a survey asking if I approved of Newt Gingrich. Why would you need to know this? I think you can infer that any Democrat either disapproves of Newt Gingrich or doesn’t know much about him. The survey ends with, you guessed it, a request for money, which starts with “If you said yes [to the previous question]”—which shows they don’t care enough about what you answer to factor those answers in.

As an aside, it’s never quite clear why it’s important that you answer these surveys, other than to ask you for donations.

Deadlines

Many emails refer to “deadlines”. While candidate emails make it clear that fundraising deadlines are based on FEC reporting requirements (which isn’t a great reason for a voter, but whatever) the DCCC emails make no reference to any external reason for their deadlines. This is likely because there isn’t one.

These deadlines seem arbitrary, like “End of Week” or “End of Month”, and the specific asks (one of which worked out as three thousand dollars between one thousand donors, to come in within eleven hours) are very specific in amounts and time frames, but do not describe what will not be possible without this extra money.

These are internal metrics. Why would a voter care about a campaign committee’s end of month deadline?

Sign dumb “cards”

Here’s an email I received on February 13th of this year:

From: DAVID’S SIGNATURE MISSING (via DCCC)

Subject: you WON’T sign Michelle’s card??

CNN REPORT:

Michelle Obama launches campaign to register ONE MILLION new voters ahead of 2022 elections

David, we’re OVERJOYED!!

Michelle Obama has launched an INCREDIBLE effort to register ONE MILLION NEW VOTERS before the 2022 elections.

David, please understand: This is EXACTLY the kind of organizing and outreach our Democrats will need to HOLD the House and SAVE the Senate from the GOP’s grasp.

That’s why we’re JUMPING into action and calling on 25,000 of our strongest Democrats to let Michelle know just how grateful we are for the incredible work she’s doing.

Please, David: Will you sign Michelle’s card now to THANK her for working to defend our democracy and our Majorities? >>

(Links to “sign” the card, including a truly ugly Photoshopped card—step away from the blur filters mate, you blurred Michelle’s hair into the background—are shown below, with some text reading **)

Clicking through to “sign” the card, in June, brings you to a form where you can write a message “to Michelle” which requires your ZIP code for some reason. I can’t imagine that she reads these messages, but I can imagine that some voters spent time carefully composing something special for Michelle—something is almost certainly never going to get anywhere near her. This disrespects the voters who receive this email by showing a lack of due care for their time and effort.

After this, you are presented with a survey. This one is presented all on one page but, again, the last question is an ask for money. This has the same problems as the emails from the DSCC, where a voter may justifiably feel misled.

As to the email itself, it starts off terribly before you even get to the body text. The “from” and “subject” fields of the email are essentially accusing the voter of doing something wrong. There is no description of what Michelle Obama’s “campaign to register ONE MILLION new voters” actually is. Where can I find out about this campaign? How can I help it? These answers are never provided, and this vagueness permeates so many of these emails.

Nancy Pelosi and her feelings

Many of the emails from the DCCC purport to be from Nancy Pelosi. Although I am confident that she has authorized emails to be sent on her behalf, it’s hard to believe that she is actually reviewing the content of them.

Of these emails, quite a few open with “David, this is the most important email I have ever sent you” or some version thereof, which is a bit ridiculous for something that asks for three dollars. Admittedly, it is three dollars from some specific thousands of donors, but it never states why they need that particular amount of money, or what the DCCC might use it for.

All of these emails are about money. Even the ones that explicitly say they are not asking for money lead you to surveys that then ask you for money.

But the bigger problem with these emails is that they assume I’m going to particularly care about Nancy Pelosi’s feelings. Here are some snippets from February of 2021 to February 2022:

“I’ve had it, David”, multiple times.
“I’m sick to my stomach, David.”
“My heart is racing. I can’t believe this news.” (About Republicans raising money of all things).
“I’m in utter disbelief, David” or something very similar, multiple times.
“I’m completely stunned.” or something very similar, multiple times.
“David, I am completely speechless.”
“I’m shocked and appalled.”
“David, I’m concerned.” or something very similar, multiple times.
“I’m incredibly alarmed.”
Worst of all, one opens with the subject: “I’m done, David”, which reeks of her giving up on fighting for voters.

This fundraising tactic continues to this day. After the recent leak of a draft opinion from the Supreme Court that would, if implemented, do away with the protections of Roe v. Wade, several people I know (including my wife) received an email from Pelosi that opened with “I am absolutely sick to my stomach.”

Why the fuck would anyone, who is terrified that their ability to make decisions about their own body will be stolen from them, give a shit about how Nancy Pelosi feels? Why would that be even in their top twenty things to worry about? And how does it look, to anyone who cares about this issue, that your email reads “I don’t like this, give me money”?

For that is what the email asks for. There are no suggestions for action other than sitting back and handing over your credit card.

Again, I don’t think she’s writing these herself, but holy shit, how could anyone be surprised if Pelosi seems out of touch to people?

Straight up lies

I’m so thrilled to tell you: You’ve been personally selected to renew your 2022 Democratic Membership.

As this is a form email sent out to thousands of people, it’s pretty clear that I have not been personally selected (at least in the commonly understood meaning of that phrase), as no person made a decision to send this email to me in particular. But it gets worse.

Not only am I not a member of the Democratic Party, but the only way that I’m aware of to join the Democratic Party is to register as such with your board of electors.

There is no means of renewal by donating three dollars (the ask in this email). Even worse, it gives the impression that if you don’t donate three dollars or more, you will no longer be considered a Democrat.

The second biggest problem

These emails seem to prioritize fundraising at the exception of all else. Tricks, misleading copy, and barefaced lies are used, along with rather sickening opportunism (such as the email from Nancy Pelosi around the time that the Supreme Court draft opinion was leaked). But by doing so, the relationships that the voters have with the Democratic Party are constantly soured. They seem a remote entity operating out of reach, except via donations; they don’t seem to care much about the voter, aside from their money; instead of talking to the voter about problems in the voter’s life and what they might do about them, they tell them how Nancy Pelosi feels.

This remoteness is shown in more of both organizations’ postures. Both DSCC and DCCC make it difficult to contact someone without having their extension. You can leave a comment on their comment lines (which may or may not be monitored). On one (I can’t remember which) I tried the option to talk to an operator, to see if I could reach someone about their email problems. I instead was sent straight back to the main menu.

Fundraising is, of course, important. But it is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself, for the organization as a whole. This is obvious: why would anyone ever want to donate to an organization that does nothing but solicit donations? Yet this is what the emails portray the Democratic Party’s priorities as.

This absolutely ruins the public image of the Democratic Party, if party leadership weren’t doing that for themselves.

The biggest problem

Ultimately, these emails seem to be entirely about fundraising—but why would Democratic organizations only target people with fundraising emails?

A lot of things suck right now, and voters are hungry to do something about these problems. Yet right when things in American life are descending into chaos, the Democratic Party doesn’t seem to care, and certainly doesn’t let its supporters know what they can do about it.

Not once did I receive an email from the DSCC or DCCC on things I could do to make a difference. Even the requests for money were only linked to Democrats holding majorities, not what those majorities might actually do to achieve any particular goal. And it was only requests for money; not phone banking, not organizing, not voter registration, nothing at all where people could get involved.

These emails are a huge missed opportunity. The Democratic Party could leverage its email lists to help advance positive change in society, and to help voters feel like they actually give a shit about what they think. But instead, they don’t do the former, and do the opposite of the latter.

Some suggestions

I do have some advice on how the Democratic Party could improve their email communication:

Be personal.
Always be honest. Never intentionally mislead.
Respect the people you are communicating with, along with their time, energy, and resources.
Center your communication around what is valuable to the voter.
There are so many problems in society that people want to do something about. Give them some way of doing so, that goes beyond simply sending some money your way. Guide them towards a way to get involved to make the world better. I found precisely zero emails from the DCCC or DSCC that did this, even for indirect things like registering people to vote.
Your emails are one way people form an opinion of you, which affects your larger goals. Do not do anything with your emails (or linked surveys) that compromise larger goals for the sake of fundraising now.
If you need someone’s opinion, tell them why, and tell them how that information will be used.
If people provide you with information or money, follow up with them, so you at least thank them.
If you’re going to ask for money, ask for money and explain, with specifics, why you need it. No vague “protecting our majority” or “help Democrats” nonsense. This holds particular importance if you say you need a particular amount of money from a group of donors.
Conversely, If you say you’re not going to ask for money, do not ask for money.

Here are example campaigns they could run:

The DCCC could showcase the campaigns of the congressional candidates in their mails. They have a lot of people’s ZIP codes, so they could be able to find the candidate (or, in cases where the ZIP code spans more than one district, candidates) and run a series of emails highlighting what that candidate is doing for district and the country. The DSCC could do something similar here for senatorial candidates.
For races that the DCCC or DSCC want to focus on, they could let voters know where they can best send funds, and what that candidate has or will do about particular issues. The DCCC [already does some of this on their website], (scroll down) but not in their emails.
Another thing that the DCCC already does on their website, but not in their emails, is [alert people to volunteering opportunities]. This seems like a no-brainer.
When bad news breaks, such as the leaked draft opinion from the Supreme Court, voters could be given practical steps on what they might do next. In the case of the opinion, the DCCC and DSCC could have called for protest (or at least provided people with information on protests that were being organized), could have described specifically what the Democratic Party is going to do about it, and perhaps leaders could have offered words that might have soothed instead of irritated. This need not be limited to areas traditionally seen as political. Imagine telling voters how they can support hurricane relief, for example, while letting them know what you are doing in Congress to help.