“The Charred Remains of a Once Great America”

8 min readNov 30, 2015

(The Presidential Email Project, October 2015)

Summary: 307 emails in 31 days

The candidates for the 2016 election slowed their email pace slightly in October, sending “only” 307 emails, compared with 350 in September. For the first time since June, Hillary Clinton took the top email spot, sending 44 messages. Mike Huckabee and Rand Paul took second and third, respectively.

Paul and Huckabee retained their top spots on the total email list, sending 213 and 208 notes, respectively, since June 1. Senator Paul had the dubious distinction of being the first candidate to send me 200 emails; he hit that milestone on October 22. Governor Huckabee followed soon after on October 27.

Ask and Ye May or May Not Receive

If I’ve learned one thing from this project, it’s this: Campaigns send a lot of emails asking, cajoling and sometimes begging for campaign donations. But as I perused political headlines in mid-October, one in particular jumped out at me: Rand Paul had raised $2.5M in the third quarter (July — September).

Just $2.5M? But it seemed like I received an email from Senator Paul asking for money every day. Could he really have raised so little money? Was there any relationship between asking for money and the total amount fundraised?

The data shows that there is no correlation between these two factors (r-squared = .04). It took Rand Paul 117 emails with requests to donate money to raise that $2.5M. Mike Huckabee’s emails were similarly ineffective, while Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders sent many fewer emails but raked in the dough.

So, when you do the math, which candidate pulls in the most money per email?

The surprising winner is Ted Cruz[1]. Senator Cruz sent just nine emails asking for donations, but pulled in $12.2M in Q3, giving him an average of $1.3M / email. Bernie Sanders, the next candidate on the list, raised $740,000 for each of his 35 fundraising emails. On the other end of the scale, George Pataki raised just $7,400 for each of his 14 solicitations.

Of course, with so much of most candidates’ fundraising coming from PAC’s rather than individual donors, dollar-per-email is probably not a good metric to track email effectiveness for most candidates [2]. The exception is the Sanders Campaign, which is attempting to make donations from “ordinary citizens” the rule, rather than the exception. There’s a better chance that emails are driving donations to his campaign than anyone else’s. If they are, then $740,000 per note ain’t bad.

Which is Worse: A Sunburn or a Beheading?

When fighting to be heard above a crowd, most people will simply try to shout louder than everyone else. That seems to be the strategy of choice for Rand Paul and especially Mike Huckabee, whose emails have grown more histrionic over the past month. Here’s a quick sample of some of my favorites:

“I refuse to let Obama destroy our country! I refuse to walk my grandchildren through the charred remains of a once great America! I refuse to surrender!” — Mike Huckabee
“…I’m counting on your support to help me bust through the media blackout. Both the media and the political establishment know I’m the Washington Machine’s worst nightmare.” — Rand Paul
“Christians are under attack like never before by Islamist radicals abroad and liberal, secular elites at home. President Obama is in bed with the radical liberals who will stop at NOTHING!” — Mike Huckabee
“Incredibly, Democrats believe climate change is a greater threat than Islamic extremism and that A SUNBURN, is worse than a BEHEADING.” — Mike Huckabee
“[The race for Speaker of the House] is about burning the corrupt Washington political machine to the ground and rebuilding our country so America can win again” — Mike Huckabee
“The answer [to Obama] is to support a candidate who will hold the Constitution in one hand and the Bill of Rights in another.” — Rand Paul [Editor’s note: This one is my favorite. Doesn’t the Constitution already include the Bill of Rights? Why do you need to hold it separately in the other hand? I would recommend the Senator Paul save the second hand for a cold beverage, so he doesn’t get thirsty while shouting nonsense.]

I’ve tried to be non-partisan in these articles…but I can’t wait for these two guys to drop out of the race.

Who Cares About the Issues?

Candidates’ requests for donations are so pervasive among these emails that it’s easy to forget that there are also issues being discussed in this election. These are the issues that voters are supposed to care about, but they are mentioned in emails a depressingly small percentage of the time.

The categories of economics and foreign policy take the top spots, appearing in 16% and 11% of all emails, respectively [3]. On the other end of the scale, civil rights, climate changes, women’s rights (not including abortion) and voting rights all are mentioned in fewer than 1% of emails. For scale, remember that candidates ask for money in 67% of all emails sent.

Why are such important issues mentioned so infrequently? I believe that we’re simply too early in the election cycle for candidates to talk in depth about the issues. At this point in the race, candidates are trying to build their organizations, improve name recognition and drum up as many possible supporters as they can. Those goals only require candidates to send simple emails asking people to consume and share content, and donate money.

Additionally, especially on the Republican side, we are still very much in the “discovery” phase on all candidates. If the 2016 primary election follows the 2012 pattern of “discovery, scrutiny and decline” then we would expect candidates to individually start emailing about particular issues during the “scrutiny” phase. I predict that Ben Carson and Donald Trump, the two candidates who have probably been discovered by the most voters, will start sending out issues-focused emails over November and December.

Email Oddities

In October we bade farewell to two Democratic candidates, Lincoln Chafee and Jim Webb. Chafee sent a nice note on October 26 reproducing a speech that outlined his decision to stop campaigning. Webb did not send an official announcement via email, but instead sent a note with the time of and link to his press conference.
This month, Ted Cruz introduced his new app, where “courageous conservatives” like you and me can earn Action Points by participating in the Cruz campaign. Canvass for Ted? Earn up to 250 Action Points. Join the Cruz Crew Strike Force and deploy to Iowa? Earn 50 Action Points. Watch Cruz reenact “The Princess Bride,” (apparently his favorite movie)? Earn 15 Action Points. Accumulating 10,000 Action Points gets you a free bumper sticker.
Two campaigns tried new fundraising tactics this month: On the morning of October 21, the Rubio campaign emailed that they had met their fundraising goals and would therefore not be asking for additional donations that day. That was, indeed the last email I received from Rubio for the month.
Second, the Clinton campaign asked me on October 20 whether or not I planned to donate to the campaign. I did not say yes or no…and still received plenty of fundraising emails later on.
In October, the Trump Campaign for the second time made the mistake of referring to Trump in both the first and the third person in the body of the same email. That proofreading intern was probably fired.
I suppose it was inevitable: Marco Rubio’s store now sells a Marco Polo
In honor of baseball’s playoffs in October, three candidates sent baseball-themed emails this month: Rubio suggested that the World Series not get in the way of my Republican Debate TV viewing. Chris Christie gave me 10 donation options, so I could pledge my support to one of the 10 playoff baseball teams (I would have picked the Cubs). And finally, Bernie Sanders introduced a line of baseball tee’s to his store. As much as I love baseball, it’s a curious tactic to try to perk Millennials’ interest in the campaign.
Ten effort points to Lindsey Graham, who got in the Halloween spirit by asking his supporters to vote for the “scariest Democrat.” I’ll report on the results as soon as I see them…
Mike Huckabee sent a few emails this month full of pictures of the governor campaigning in Iowa. The vast majority of those pictures show him chatting with white-haired caucasians. Combine that with the fact that he mentioned Social Security in 43% of his October emails, and I think we’ve just nailed down his target audience.

Thanks for reading this month’s article! See you next month.

What is the Presidential Email Project? I’ve subscribed to the email lists of every 2016 presidential candidate. I read every email and track the topics covered, key phrases mentioned and other interesting statistics. Every month I’ll report on trends that I’m seeing. You can read more about my methodology here. This is the fourth post in the series, covering October, 2015.

Footnotes

[1] Donald Trump actually raised the most money per email, but on a technicality. When reading emails, I classify notes hawking merchandise under fundraising (because that’s the point of merchandise…). In just one of his 13 emails, Trump mentioned his campaign store, leading me to classify that one email as fundraising. Bloomberg reported that Trump raised $3.9M, so he raised $3.9M / email.

[2] If anyone can find a source for how much candidates raised from PAC’s vs individual donors in Q3, please let me know and I’ll re-work the analysis.

[3] Remember that these emails don’t count what will likely be a post-Paris foreign policy boom. I’m expecting emails to mention foreign policy much more often throughout November.