You’re All Winners, Republicans!
(The Presidential Email Project, September 2015)
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 third post in the series, covering September, 2015.
Overview: 350 emails in 30 days
The candidates for President of the United States sent out a record 350 emails in the 30 days of September. Rand Paul was once again the most prolific emailer of the month, sending 53 missives, followed closely by Mike Huckabee and Hillary Clinton.
Those 53 emails allowed Senator Paul to extend his lead of overall emails since June 1. Huckabee also increased his lead over Clinton for 2nd place.
(Almost) Everyone’s a Winner
Here’s an observation that will surprise no one: Candidates like to send emails declaring themselves the winner of the debate. After the second Republican Debate back on September 16, nine out of the 14 Republican candidates explicitly declared in an email that they had won the debate:
Perhaps more surprising is that some candidates didn’t claim they had won the debate. Trump, Carson, Christie and Cruz all touted their debate performance after the event, but none explicitly claimed victory in the contest[1].
“Did you hear that? That’s the sound of Democrats hitting the panic button…” -Jeb! Bush declaring debate victory
End of Quarter Crunch
The end of September brought the end of the 3rd fiscal quarter. Just like the end of the 2nd quarter in June, my inbox was hit with a deluge of funding requests over the last five days of the month. Between September 26 and 30 candidates emailed 114 times; just 3 of those emails did not contain fundraising requests.
The graph above shows the total number of emails I received each day (black line) and the number of emails I received asking for money (green line). The graph shows that for much of the month, there were plenty of non-funding emails sent; starting September 27, however, both email volume and the proportion of those emails that ask for funding spiked. Interestingly, fundraising emails also increase just after the September 16th debate. The next day I received 17 separate emails to the effect of, “Wasn’t I great? Please donate to keep our momentum going.”
Email Oddities
- Lincoln Chafee’s email team hit the accelerator in September, emailing 5 times. The highlight was his campaign update on September 29, which is by far the most pleasant email I have received throughout this project. (Read the following in your best 6 year old child voice with this music playing) “Dear Friends! I have good news. We’ve been invited to participate in the upcoming Democratic debate in Las Vegas on Tuesday, October 13th at 9pm ET! I urge you tune in and support me as I present my fresh ideas for America…I’m very excited and proud for the opportunity to engage in an honest and thoughtful exchange with my fellow candidates in a national forum for the first time. It’s clear we’ve a talented and thoughtful group of candidates…”
- In September I was, for the first time, fooled into opening presidential emails that I thought were personal. First, Chris Christie’s campaign emailed on a Thursday afternoon with the subject “don’t forget to set your lineup.” I opened the email to find a reminder to set both my fantasy football and my 2016 lineup. “As you saw in the last debate, Team Christie is on offense, and we need your help to keep moving the ball down the field.“
- Later in the month, Marco Rubio sent a fake calendar invitation with the subject “Invitation: Donate @ Mon Sep 28.” As someone who relies heavily on his work calendar to know where i’m supposed to be, I opened by instinct. I was fooled twice, shame on me…
- I received two generous offers in September to cease fundraising emails. If I responded to a note from Marco Rubio and donated $5 or more, he promised that I would not receive any more fundraising emails for the rest of the month. The Jindal campaign offered the same benefit…but for a donation of $100 or more. Taking these offers would have saved me about 18 emails from Rubio and 6 from Jindal.
- Team Jindal, sent the most visceral email of the campaign, with the subject, “Jindal wins debate, neutered Republic Establishment.” Taking a page from Senator Joni Ernst’s book it seems.
- Last month I predicted that Bernie Sanders’ campaign would continue to send fundraising emails at a quick pace — and was incorrect. Just 56% of Sanders’ emails in September solicited funds, down directionally from 72% in August. Sanders is in a predicament: If his strategy is to attract a large number of small donations, he should be casting as wide a net as possible. But asking for money goes somewhat against his brand. I predict that his funding requests will increase again in October.
- Scott Walker’s final email, sent September 19th, had the subject line, “Won’t back down.” Two days later he had officially backed down and out of the race
- For the second month in a row, Mike Huckabee’s campaign marked an email as “sent from my iPhone” that could not possibly have actually been written on an iPhone. It was again an email full of tricky formatting and hyperlinks, and was again sent right after the end of a debate.
Thanks for Reading!
As always, thank you for reading the Presidential Email Project — October was a bit of a crazy month, hence the late publish on September data. Look out for an October post much earlier than December 1st. You can also read the summaries of June and July and August
[1] I still haven’t recieved an email from John Kasich
