All in all, we are proud to have helped flip 9 congressional seats, 2 governor’s mansions, hold 3 battleground Senate seats and flip 2 state legislative chambers on Tuesday.
Throughout 2017 we started winning, and GQR has not stopped. Our strategic insights and advice helped successful campaigns fight and win tough primaries, and continue forward to send a Democratic majority to the House of Representatives, hold critical Senate seats, flip state legislative seats and take back control of Governor’s mansions all across this country.
On Tuesday night all of our hard work paid off. GQR was the pollster of record for ONE-QUARTER of all the House seats flipped this year. We were partners with 42% of all the campaigns that flipped seats to take control of the US House of Representatives.
And while we enjoyed working with all of these campaigns, the real number to remember is GQR won 10 Toss-Up Races this year: Lizzie Fletcher TX-07, Susan Wild PA-08, Kim Schrier WA-08, Dean Phillips MN-03, Tom Malinowski NJ-07, Debbie Murcarsel Powell FL-26, Chris Pappas NH-01, Elissa Slotkin MI-08, Andy Kim NJ-03 and Anthony Brindisi NY-22.
We worked with 5 winning gubernatorial campaigns – electing the first Democratic Latina Governor in the country, with Michelle Lujan Grisham’s resounding victory Tuesday night. In addition to New Mexico, Connecticut’s Governor-Elect Ned Lamont secured victory, we saw the overwhelming reelection of Tom Wolf in Pennsylvania, and were proud to work with our partners on Janet Mills’ victory in Maine and the reelection of Governor Gina Raimondo in Rhode Island.
Our team’s insights and actions led to the election of Tina Smith to the US Senate in Minnesota and Amy Klobuchar’s 60% reelection win in the state. Our polling in Michigan saw the reelection of Debbie Stabenow and our work in New Jersey helped reelect Senator Menendez.
We worked with our clients on the front lines of change this cycle in state legislatures across the country. Our research led to the pick-up of 7 seats in the New Mexico State House and flipping both chambers of the New Hampshire Legislature. Developing a research-based strategy, we helped the CT Senate Caucus to build their super-majority last night. We broke the Republican super-majority in both houses of the NC State Legislature. And in the vote-by-mail state of Washington, the State House Democrats saw their best numbers this week where they are leading in more than 7 seats.
Our wins didn’t stop there. From mayors like Greg Fischer in Louisville, KY winning reelection to Secretary of State-Elect Jocelyn Benson winning in Michigan – we helped elect leaders at every level of government. We worked with amazing candidates across the country and we are so proud to stand with them this cycle.
Our innovative Digital team worked with campaigns across the country, helping them operate in an evolving social media ecosystem. GQR worked with campaign teams to break through social media noise, identify and inoculate voters from bad actors and misleading information online, launch digital organizing programs, and understand what truly reached their voters online. In addition to campaign work, in the lead up to the election our digital team conducted threat analysis and real-time monitoring for independent expenditures in battleground states including Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida, Georgia, and Maine.
GQR was leading the messaging effort on healthcare so candidates could connect with voters concerned with our healthcare system. We were the first to make the rising cost of prescription drug prices and the reduced access to healthcare services for men and women the central message of their campaigns – and this issue was a winner.
We worked with 28 dynamic, diverse and strong women all across the country this year. Twelve of our congressional clients were inspired to run for office for the first time by the situation they saw in Washington – 9 of them flipped seats to take back control of the House.
It has been a privilege to work hand-in-hand with fantastic campaign teams and candidates to implement a vision to help elect leaders at every level of government.
Since pollsters are all about getting the numbers right, I’d say these Toplines speak for themselves.
Congratulations to all of our candidates for running hard-fought campaigns