How Tom Steyer Built the Biggest Political Machine You’ve Never Heard Of
SAN FRANCISCO—In one room, they’re building multicolored matrices matching purchases in their online store to hashtags in affiliated Twitter accounts. In another, they’re texting supporters, tracking and amping up RSVPs to the first-anniversary town hall coming up on Saturday in New Jersey. Over at the creative pod, they’ve already cut a 30-second web ad off the idea that came up in the morning meeting. They’re tracking down supporters’ cell-phone numbers. There’s a staffer scanning bar codes on personalized postcards that have been returned, which will now be digitized and emailed to the people whose mailing addresses weren’t working. They’re prepping a glossy mailer that will hit 3.1 million people next week.
And if Democrats win the House, Need to Impeach will immediately move to the next phase, with a plan that includes activating its list to immediately pressure new members to sign on with Donald Trump’s impeachment, flooding them long before they have staffs set up in Washington. A group of constitutional lawyers is already under contract drafting specific articles of impeachment against Trump, which it will then mail to supporters. (If and when Bob Mueller puts out a report, they may do an update.)
“We just turn on the spigot,” said Kevin Mack, the chief strategist at Need to Impeach, “right away.”
Mike Bloomberg has made headlines for becoming the biggest Democratic donor of the midterm cycle, spreading $100 million to
