The Promesa Project

Politic365 by Anthony Gutierrez

Any Democratic campaign manager in Texas who isn’t including Latinos in their target voter contact universe would (or should) be quickly fired for negligence.

But knowing that Democrats need to target Latinos has never been the party's problem and in fact, when resources are focused, Texas Democrats are very successful in down ballot races by turning out Latinos.

And there’s the rub: in Texas we have 254 counties, 20 media markets and an awful lot of real estate to cover. Putting the kind of Latino turnout programs you see in swing states like Nevada or Colorado in place in Texas would carry a price tag in the tens of millions of dollars.

It’s a tough problem. But, we have come up with a theory of our own.

Promesa Project Video

Last year the Texas Democratic Party launched an innovative Latino engagement program called the Promesa Project.

Through this program, we’re asking young Latinos to give us their promise, or “Promesa”, that they’ll talk to their family and friends about voting Democratic.

That simple premise was the product of two recent findings.

First, that today’s young Latinos are increasingly the trusted sources of political information in their families. Second, that the Internet has surpassed television as the main source of news for people under thirty.

We believe that utilizing online outreach layered on top of traditional grassroots techniques will allow us to efficiently increase our vote share among older Latinos, boost Latino turnout among younger Latinos and simultaneously begin an engagement process that will build out Party towards the future.

Time will obviously tell us whose theory is correct. Our project began last year and we’ll be proud to stand by our results in November.

Read the full story @ Politic365 by Anthony Gutierreza.

Anthony Gutierrez serves as an adviser to the Texas Democratic Party and other Democratic candidates through his video production and digital media firm, Cadre Media.