WE TAKE PRIDE IN OUR WORK
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We recently partnered with Impact Research to understand views toward major tech companies.
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Electing the First Queer Latina to Congress
State Senator Emily Randall started the race for WA-06 fighting an uphill battle. Congressman Derek Kilmer announced his retirement and immediately endorsed Washington’s Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz, who thanks to two runs for Governor, had an impressive fundraising network and a significant head start on endorsements. Franz also quickly targeted Randall for being too progressive despite winning the most divided district in the legislature, lined up powerful deep pockets from the establishment and from the tribes, and dedicated significant resources to attracting AIPAC into the race. Randall brought an embarrassment of riches to the race: she grew up in the district in a working class, union household, had a compelling healthcare story, worked at Planned Parenthood, and assembled an impressive legislative record in Olympia. Upswing conducted research to help distill her record into something succinct and manageable given our expected money disadvantage by: • Authentically showing why Emily was in this fight. By showcasing Emily’s background, her history helping her sister with special needs, and her time at Planned Parenthood, we were able to draw a contrast with the privileged Franz. • Highlighting her validators. The polling showed Franz’s background flopped, so we anticipated her hugging our message tightly on experience, abortion, and standing up to Trump. We parried that by using validators like Planned Parenthood, the Alliance for Gun Responsibility, and the state labor council to show that Emily was the real deal. • Identifying our base and doubling down. Randall did exceptionally well with voters under 50 and in Tacoma. These groups were significant but far short of a majority. We knew we needed to blow the doors off these demos to win.
Equipping Campaigns and Advocacy Groups with Digital Insights
Since 2020, we have partnered with a range of clients to support 150+ Democratic campaigns and 600+ advocacy groups at the state and federal level with digital intelligence and strategies for defending against harmful narratives. Our work has included: • Full-time social listening and threat monitoring across all 50 states, with an emphasis on key battlegrounds and strategies for actioning the intelligence provided • Training thousands of operatives and volunteers across the country, covering key social media dynamics, the risks of generative AI, crisis drills, and rapid-response playbooks • Mapping the people, stories, and networks that drive debate and shape behavior across dozens of states and issues • On-call rapid response support for party committees, campaigns, and progressive allies • Pinpointing influencers to fuel proactive digital pushes • Delivering thousands of concise research briefs to senior decision-makers Ironclad internal firewalls protect client data and keep every engagement discrete.
Electing Pennsylvania's First Black Congresswoman
State Representative Summer Lee started the race for the open 12th Congressional District primary as a frontrunner. She sported a strong, well-defined brand in the district. No one else running had a profile in the district. Still, because of her record as a progressive and someone who stood up to powerful corporate special interests, money began flowing in to stop Summer. We conducted research that helped pinpoint Lee’s strengths and how to push back against the attacks the campaign expected. We beat back this onslaught by: • Showing Summer’s authenticity. Our research showed that Summer was well-known, well-liked, and well-defined, particularly among younger voters and Black voters. So, we had Summer do paid communication direct to camera and pushed for as much earned media coverage as we could grab because the data clearly showed that Summer was a strong messenger for herself. • Highlighted the historic nature of her candidacy. Our research also showed that voters, particularly Black voters, younger voters and college educated women, wanted Congress to look more like America. We did not shy away from the barriers Summer was breaking. • Pushed back hard on deceitful attacks. We took the attacks head on. We called them lies from dark money super PACs and highlighted third party validators like the local papers that denounced the ads. This had a dramatic effect helping negate the negative ads. Summer Lee defeated the super PACs preferred candidate despite a 5 to 1 spending disadvantage to become Pittsburgh’s first Black Congressperson and Pennsylvania’s first Black Congresswoman.
Defeating the Corporate Machine in Allegheny County
State Representative Sara Innamorato started the race for Allegheny County Executive in a distant third against Conor Lamb's uncle, Pittsburgh Controller Michael Lamb and John Weinstein, a countywide elected official for the past 25 years. Making matters worse, Weinstein quickly earned the support from the business and developer community who felt threatened by a progressive candidate; Weinstein raised a million dollars in corporate-aligned money in 2 months, allowing him to start his media campaign more than a month before anyone else. We conducted research that helped show Sara's background and record in Harrisburg made her a uniquely appealing candidate while offering contrast with her opponents by: • Casting Sara as unapologetically progressive and the only progressive in the race. While Lamb and Weinstein tacked toward the center, we saw that Sara's progressive record in Harrisburg coupled with exposing Weinstein's and Lamb's Republican and corporate funding gave Sara a clear path to the nomination. • Offering a vision for the future rooted in affordable housing, making corporations pay their fair share, and improving air and water. While Lamb and Weinstein focused their campaigns on accomplishments from the 1990s and 2000s, Sara offered recent accomplishments in Harrisburg centered on Whole Home Repairs legislation and fighting for workers and, most importantly, a clear vision on what she'd do as County Executive. Sara was the only candidate who made a clear case for what she was going to do rather than focusing just on what she's done. • Having her deliver the message herself. Pittsburgh and Allegheny County have been demonstrating for years that they want elected officials who are progressive and look like the people who live there. That's why we made sure Sara was delivering the message herself, direct to camera, directly to voters. Despite being outspent, Sara Innamorato won a decisive victory: 38% to Weinstein's 30% and Lamb's 20%.
Defending and Advancing Freedom in Pennsylvania
Our team has supported Governor Josh Shapiro since 2022, when we helped defeat extremist opponent, born and bred from the Right’s powerful online ecosystem. Our team helped the campaign maintain an intensely disciplined strategy while navigating an online landscape built to elevate their opponent. This meant: • Developing an initial baseline analysis and roadmap, which we then built on each week to review changing dynamics, emerging narratives, and any necessary strategic shifts • Investing in training the full campaign – from management down to entry-level staff – on digital communications best practices • Leveraging their supporter movement, including an active Facebook group with 20,000 members who could counter lies by tapping into their own networks • Navigating rapid response when necessary, but staying relentlessly on message instead of chasing distractions that were isolated in echo chambers Blending this program with an already-impressive campaign and network of supporters led to an astounding near-15-point victory. This historic win is best encapsulated by the inaugural ceremony occurring in Lancaster County – a county Shapiro lost by less than 2 points, despite Trump winning it by 16 in 2020.
Electing Criminal Justice Reformers Across the Country
For the last 4 years, we have been conducting research for Justice and Public Safety PAC to hold anti-reform district attorneys accountable and electing new DAs who will help make the system fairer for everyone. Given how entrenched many of these DAs are in the political system, the campaigns are tough and expensive. Still, a few trends come through in these races: • Voters are hungry for reform-minded candidates. Even in places where voters say crime is a concern, they overwhelmingly say they support reformers for district attorney over candidates who want a traditional, tough on crime approach. • Voters also want DAs who will hold bad cops accountable. Even moderates and independents want to make sure the streets are safe for everyone. • The candidates who lead with their values win. Voters want to know what you stand for, so we craft the research to help them tell their stories. The candidates for DA who state why they're running and what their change in a clear fashion are the ones who win. We're proud to have partnered with Justice and Public Safety PAC to secure these victories: • José Garza in Travis County, TX • Jacqueline Sartoris in Cumberland County, ME • Ryan Mears in Marion County, IN • Democratic Nominee Matt Dugan in Allegheny County, PA
Building Influencer Engagement Capacity in Rural Montana
In 2024, Senator Jon Tester’s team came to us with a simple challenge: They needed to break through online as a red-state Democrat, in a state with limited digital opportunities to begin with. While the political landscape was too much to overcome on Election Day, our team helped strengthen their offensive program by: • Identifying 300+ potential influencers, including national political voices, local political voices, and nonpolitical local voices • Providing a roadmap for influencer partnerships, rooted in best practices from our team’s experience building in-house influencer programs for Democrats • Generating ideas for engagement with various identified groups Our team’s approach to influencer identification focused on manually scrubbing social media to capture beyond what flashy firms could offer.
Leveraging People Power to Reshape Online Falsehoods
When Indivisible asked for help building a new program to counter online lies in 2020, We helped create the Truth Brigade. Through the program, we: • Identify high-priority topics and build regular digital organizing campaigns to counter them with proactive communications • Empower people to share content that helps to both correct falsehoods and build trust for positive narratives • Encourage activists to speak in their own voice, generating trust from their audience • Offer an active community where people amplify each other’s content, giving it an algorithmic benefit that helps it travel farther Through the Truth Brigade, over 6,000 activists have shared messages that have generated hundreds of millions of social media impressions. This program shows that a grassroots, people-powered organizing network can make real waves to shape online discourse.