MSNCB - Freshman Rep on How Ground Strategy Helped Win Election

Interview

Congressman Boyle was recently featured on MSNBC to discuss the successful campaign strategy that got him elected to U.S. Congress. Here are a few excerpts from the interview with Luke Russert:

Russert: You have an interesting backstory in how you got elected. You were actually in the most expensive primary fight in the country for the House. You were underfunded compared to some of your competition. You essentially won this nomination by pounding the pavement. How were you able to pull this off?

Boyle: It was a combination of things. First, we did end up spending over one million dollars, but as you pointed out that was fourth out of the four candidates who ran. Fortunately we had good TV advertising. The thing that we did that none of the other three candidates did was the grassroots politics. We spent 14 months going out door-to-door, hosting community events -- sometimes as few as 12-15 Democratic voters -- taking every single question, talking about why I wanted the position, what I would do with it, and fortunately slowly over time that just chipped away.

Russert: Does your primary victory translate how Democrats can win over white working class voters? Is that what it takes: pounding the pavements for months and months?

Boyle: I 100 percent believe in it. When I see my party struggling with white working class voters it's amazing to me because about 70 percent of my district is white -- it's a mix of lower-middle income and middle income. There's no reason why we can't do far better throughout the country.

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