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Voting & Elections Assignment

The closest thing Harris County government has to a CEO is the Harris County Judge. Despite the title, it's not a judicial position. The Harris County Judge presides over Harris County Commissioners' Court - like a city council, but for the county, and has certain other duties, particularly with regard to emergency management.

In 2018, popular Harris County Judge Ed Emmett was defeated in what many observers felt was something of a fluke. A 28-year old Colombian immigrant with no experience as an elected official won - mostly due to Democratic straight-ticket voting by supporters of Beto O'Rourke, a candidate for U.S. Senate who carried Harris County by a wide margin despite losing the statewide election to Ted Cruz.

Hidalgo's service as county judge has had some controversy. Critics have a lot to say about her views on criminal justice reform and pandemic mandates, and three of her key staff members have been indicted for allegedly steering an $11 million vaccine outreach contract away from the UT Health Science Center to a political consultant with no relevant experience.

Still, Harris County has leaned pretty far left for the past several elections, and some are skeptical that any Republican nominee - even another Hispanic female - can unseat a Democratic incumbent.

Your assignment: You are now the phantom campaign manager for one of these two candidates. Design a campaign to win the election. Write this assignment as a 2 - 5 page memorandum.

(but with cited sources) from you, the campaign manager, to your candidate. Outline the race for them, how much money you think they need to raise, how you will raise it for them, what you propose to spend it on, what issues they should talk about, how you want to deliver their message, etc.

Some things to keep in mind:

● Most important: Remember, you're writing a memo to your client, not a report about your client. Talk to your candidate. Don't tell them their own biography - they already know where they went to school, how many kids they have, etc. Focus on the campaign you want to run.

● Lina Hidalgo is the incumbent. Incumbents always enter a race with a decided advantage, although - to be fair - Hidalgo won this race four years ago by beating the incumbent. She is young, intelligent, energetic and articulate.

● Alexandra Mealer has an impressive background, graduating from West Point and serving as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal officer in Afghanistan.

● This race is far down a long election ballot, after dozens of federal, state and local judicial races. Many voters are going to the polls because they're mad about gas prices, inflation, abortion rights and January 6 - none of which are issues over which a county judge has any control. How do you deal with that?

● In 2018, many voters chose the "straight ticket" option - voting for either all Democrats or all Republicans with a single choice at the beginning of the ballot. Straight ticket voting is no longer available in Texas. You can vote for all the candidates from one party, but you have to choose those candidates individually, one race at a time. Will that impact the outcome of a "down-ballot" race like this one?

● What's your candidate's message? How will you deliver it, and to whom? How much money will you need? How will you raise it? How will you spend it?

This can be a challenging assignment, but it can also be a lot of fun. Keep in mind that campaigning is more art than science, and that there are few absolutely right or wrong answers. If I asked five campaign professionals to do this assignment for the same candidate, I would probably get five totally different campaign strategies (and they'd charge me a lot of money).

Submit in Word. Cite your sources.

Resources

Here are the candidates' websites:

https://www.linahidalgo.com/

https://alexandramealer.com/

How's fundraising going? As of the July 15 reports, Hidalgo has the advantage: https://www.offthekuff.com/wp/?p=106224

Texas Monthly talks about tensions within the Democratic Party over this race: https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/lina-hidalgo-kim-ogg-tensions/

In July, an extensive poll by the Hobby School showed this race as a "statistical dead heat:" http://m2s-conf.uh.edu/hobby/txpolicyandpolitics/harriscounty22.pdf

Liberal blogger Charles Kuffner spends a lot of time covering local elections, including posts of interviews with candidates:http://offthekuff.com/mt/

Another local blog, Big Jolly Politics, has a lot on local elections:http://www.bigjolly.com/

Local political consultant Marc Campos has another perspective on local politics: http://www.camposcommunications.com/dailycommentary.aspx

Campaigns and Elections Magazine editor Ron Faucheaux has an article called "Writing your campaign plan: the seven components for winning an election":

http://books.google.com/books?id=hWa9QYkFYe4C&lpg=PA66&ots=fPoZLGe3m2&dq= campaign%20plan%20Faucheux&pg=PA66#v=onepage&q=campaign%20plan%20Fau cheux&f=false