Run the best campaign.
DC | Massachusetts | New Hampshire
New Jersey | New York | Nevada | Oregon
Run the best campaign.
DC | Massachusetts | New Hampshire
New Jersey | New York | Nevada | Oregon
Our Stories
We’ve worked with campaigns of all shapes and sizes. A couple stories make us particularly proud.
Casino Smoking Ban
During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, casinos in Atlantic City, NJ temporarily disallowed smoking indoors. Until this time, casinos were one of the final remnants of an era when employees and patrons of businesses and public places were forced to breathe in deadly secondhand smoke. After one year without smoke, the ban was lifted, but workers had dealt with enough. A grassroots movement of casino workers began advocating for a permanent end to the choice that was forced upon them: their health or a paycheck.
With our client, Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights, D.O. Strategies has led the campaign in New Jersey to pass legislation that will permanently close the casino smoking loophole. Since we began, we’ve worked with the grassroots casino worker group, Casino Employees Against Smoking Effects (CEASE), to train and guide them on advocacy strategies, organized and spearheaded a coalition of partner organizations, won backing from labor unions, and executed a legislative strategy to exponentially increase support in the state senate, general assembly and governor’s office. Now more than a majority of the state legislature cosponsors the bill.
Our work with our client and CEASE has helped build this effort into a national movement, with CEASE chapters and legislative, legal, or ballot efforts underway in states across the county.
Portland, OR Mayoral Campaign
With two months remaining in the 2020 campaign cycle, the incumbent mayor of Portland, Oregon had seen upheaval in the city from daily protests and riots, raging wildfires, the height of the pandemic, and the economic emergencies that followed. Public opinion on the state of the city was negative, but also entirely split – many held totally opposing views on why they disapproved. Differing pressures from across the political spectrum collapsed the mayor’s approval rating to only 1/3rd of the community. The reelection campaign trailed their challenger by 11 percentage points, was facing legal challenges, had virtually no cash-on-hand, and was being significantly outspent.
Seven weeks out from the election, D.O. Strategies took over management of the mayor’s campaign and led a complete overhaul. We emphasized drastically reorienting fundraising priorities, developed direct mail to reach a sliver of voters still able to be persuaded and digital advertising promoting positive messaging, found partnerships with labor unions and activist groups, intensely focused on proactive and reactive communications, and utilized in-depth opposition research.
Within a month we had closed the polling gap. On Election Day the mayor won a second term.