The success of Powered by People, Beto O’Rourke’s leadership PAC, offers a model to other groups hoping to translate volunteer power into electoral power.
The group helped rally thousands of volunteers who took to Texas streets, roads and neighborhoods in an effort to get the vote out for former Vice President Joe Biden. According to founder O’Rourke, the group sent 57.8 million texts and made 18.3 million calls to Texas voters, helped register around 200,000 voters in the state, and flooded Texas with over 10,000 volunteers to knock on doors.
Even though the group wasn’t able to flip Texas blue, it’s an impressive impact statement from a group that’s barely a year old.
Personal appeal to political power
Founded in December 2019 in the wake of O’Rourke’s failed presidential campaign, Powered by People was seen as a vanity project from a former candidate whose image had taken a few hits since his energetic but ultimately doomed presidential campaign. But the Texas Democrat successfully pivoted from that defeat and used his devout fanbase to build an organizational model that turned his personal appeal into a voter turnout powerhouse.
“Before Beto, I had never donated a dime to a campaign; I had never volunteered; I had never gone to a campaign event,” volunteer Brenda Jurgens told the Texas Signal in June. “Nothing.”
In addition to its work on the ground, Powered by People also raised $2,034,165 for Texas Democrats and organizers and filled more than 17,000 hours at food banks in the state.
According to financial information from the Center for Responsive Politics, Powered by People raised a total of $2,672,047 in the 2019-2020 cycle, with $2,057,718 of that total coming from donors contributing $200 or more.
What he learned
While the general impact of his group on communities and voter turnout is clear, O’Rourke had a message for Democrats in the wake of the election regarding what worked in Texas, what didn’t, and what to do next time.
While Democrats are at a disadvantage against a party that won’t tell the truth, O’Rourke said, they need to understand that messaging means offering people substantive change—and that doing so in person remains the key to electoral success. “Nothing beats meeting your voters, eyeball to eyeball,” O’Rourke wrote. “We should always find a way to canvas directly at the voter’s door. There is a safe way to do this, even in a pandemic.”
That’s part of what the Texan described as a tactical advantage in voter outreach that needs to take place “year-round.” And it requires major investments in digital and social media platforms.
On the messaging side, O’Rourke recommends that Democrats adopt a more robust set of principles that candidates believe in—not the national party’s consultant-produced talking points.
“People are smart,” wrote O’Rourke. “They can smell a focus-group tested message, talking points derived from polls, a campaign derived from polls, from a mile away.”
