Campaign Takeaways
It has taken me a little bit to reflect on the wild ride of my campaign – did it make sense to run, what happened, what worked, and what are the takeaways?
While I’m disappointed with the results, I think Vince Lombardi’s quote that he ‘never lost a game, just ran out of time’ sums up why I am still feeling optimistic. I’m proud of what we accomplished in such a short time and beyond grateful for your support. So here we go:
PART 1: TAKEAWAYS
Gratitude
It would feel wrong not to start with this - whether it was donors, door knocking, texters, or designers, I was consistently surprised at how many people were willing to step in to help and punch above their weight. Thank you.
However, I felt like I was always “taking” and not able to “give back” at the same rate. So, if you need any help with anything please reach out, it will make me feel better.
What You Say Doesn’t Really Matter
When I started collecting signatures to run, the first thing I learned was that most people don’t care about your policy positions. As a policy wonk, this was tough. I know I bring a wealth of policy knowledge to the table, but I rarely got a chance to talk about policy. It is understated how important acting, improv, and learning how to show up with power is needed for campaigning.
Hyperbolic Reactions from Friends
There were some individuals I haven’t seen for years, maybe I swam with them three years ago, but out of nowhere they stepped up to contribute the federal max to my campaign simply because they believed in me. Others stepped up to fly in to help me campaign or promised to help me from 1am – 2am after they finished work. These were true acts of kindness I will never forget.
There was also pain when some people had the exact opposite reactions… professors I liked told me bluntly to never bring up my campaign, classmates who threatened to report me to the FEC falsely claiming I broke some electioneering rule I never knew existed. These are the 1% of interactions I encountered, but they hurt. I’m used to people criticizing something I did, like a bad investment pitch or bad meeting. It is something different when someone clearly says they like someone else more than you.
Don’t Ever Trust Endorsements
Special interest groups love to boast that 90% of their candidates win the primary. They don’t tell you this is often because they wait until the day after the primary to endorse. Interest groups aren’t there to help the “best” candidates connect to their members, too often they are just protecting their reputations and hedging their bets. I was particularly upset when the nation’s most influential environmental organization didn’t ask me a single question about my climate background or the extensive climate policy plans I wrote. Instead, they basically just said they endorse based on who they think will win. Heartbreaking. I always looked up to this organization that saved the Grand Canyon, saved Dinosaur National Monument, and yet, they didn’t even seem to care that I was the only candidate running on a platform that focused on public lands.
Welcome to the world of Catch-22s. In dozens of interviews, the conversation went something like this: “We love what you are doing, we just don’t think you have enough money to compete against candidate X.” Literally, organizations that have millions of dollars to give, say they can’t give to you until you have money makes no sense to me. Then there are the organizations that support young people running for office. Great idea, huh? Well, they only support in races where a Democrat isn’t running against another Democrat. Literally, how do you expect to get young Dems into office?
Why are educational institutions too scared to help?
I’ve known since 5th grade I wanted to run for office someday. We have schools to teach people how to be everything from CEOs to psychologists. Why not a school for politicians? Clearly politics is messed up today, but I believe this is partly because the best educational institutions stay out of the ring. There deserves to be a school where we can teach smart people how to run for office. America has problems because the smartest institutions in the world are trapped in their ivory towers.
Building the Plane and Flying it at the Same Time
I felt like as my first campaign I was trying to figure out how everything works in real time. Part II goes into detail of the steps we took. I’ve said for the last few months, I wish I was a “second time candidate.”
BGF
BGF is an acronym that stands for Boat Go Faster. BGF is a reminder to focus on only the stuff that matters: what will make your boat lighter, sleeker, and faster. During my campaign, I found that I spent many hours dealing with small crises, random emails, interruptions, etc. and not focusing on enacting strategy. People in business talk about the 80/20 rule, but I think people should talk more about the 0/0 rule. Does it actually have to get done?
Running a Campaign is like Running a Business - and yet it is the worst business model in the world
Your job as a candidate is to build your brand, market, innovate, go to market, manage a team, and scale. The synergies with business school were innumerable.
However, campaigns move so fast, that what works in the business world, doesn’t work on campaigns. For instance, I had about three weeks to build my campaign team. In a business, I could wait three quarters to hire the perfect candidate, you don’t have that time on campaigns. So, I had to give up a lot of the things I learned about how to hire and fire to match the necessary timeline.
Campaigns are the worst business model in the world. There are zero sources of revenue. You are stuck on a fundraising treadmill. Money comes in and goes out the door immediately.
In business school, one key lesson is that you need to be profitable to scale. If you aren’t profitable, you end up spending all of your time fundraising. This is the only way to get off the fundraising hamster wheel. This isn’t possible on a campaign. Running a campaign disturbed me with how much time I had to spend fundraising.
After campaigning, there is something beautiful about running a for-profit business. You have cash flow to reinvest. Cashflow to scale. And this cash flow means you don’t always need to be thinking about fundraising. You can think about running the business, not just fundraising.
Cash is King
Despite some edge cases, money means way more than it should. It opens doors like nothing else (even if it doesn’t get you through the door). The more money you raise, the more media attention you get.
Is this really where money should go? Think about it, $10 million or more will be spent on this race in this district alone. We could almost eliminate hunger in the district for the entirety of the whole campaign with these funds.
Too many pieces of the campaign require large sums of money. Getting on the ballot costs $2,000, writing a 200-word candidate position statement costs over $10,000. The process restricts too many people from entering if they don’t have the early funds to pay for these costs.
Sales Matters
It is not just about passion, but conviction. Most great careers (especially politicians) eventually become sales jobs. You must evangelize your plans to customers, prospective employees, the press, investors, etc. Self-belief alone is not sufficient—you also must be able to convince other people of what you believe. Just because you have passion, doesn’t mean you can sell your conviction. This isn’t innate to me. As an investor I want my previous returns to speak for themselves. It is tough to strike a balance between being humble and showing your conviction.
People Will Doubt You
At every step along the way, you will find people doubting you. One thing I did was to keep a journal of positive self-talk. I wrote a few sentences that I truly felt were positive a few times each week. Something I knew to be true, that made me feel good about myself. This helped me get out of my own way. It is so tough to have confidence in yourself when people doubt your will, intentions, or chances.
Campaign Workloads Rival Wall Street
When I worked on Wall Street or for multiple investment firms, I almost always got some semblance of a weekend. I didn’t realize that politicians don’t get breaks. When politicians aren’t in DC, they spend their weekends back home with constituents. Your weekends are golden time to spend with constituents and meeting the community, not for yourself. Over the past five months, I’ve never missed so many friend’s birthdays before. It was unsustainable. You don’t get to ski, you don’t get to backpack, you don’t get to check out. You are always on.
You Need People in Your Corner Who Won’t Ever Leave
During the campaign it felt like I was often in a rainforest, holding a small machete, and trying to get myself through dense vegetation. During these situations, it is so important that when you return home, you don’t have to use your machete anymore. My family was always there for me every step of the way. My parents and siblings were among my greatest advocates, supporters, and confidants. Knowing I could return home and my three roommates (Grace, Haley, and Ruth) were there for support, even on the most difficult days, meant the world. I couldn’t have entered the race if I had to fight any personal battles at home.
My Thoughts on the Results
I’m not going to lie, I’m still a little upset. The voter turnout was abysmal. This was the first election in 30 years where the seat was open. It was also the first time in a while to elect a new Senator in California. Plus, it is a Presidential Primary. And yet, turnout was extremely low.
The average age of voters was probably over 65 years old. Democracy isn’t a spectator sport. Every voice matters. I also think at a national level, in one of the bluest districts in the country, Republicans had a strong turnout. This should be a big warning sign for November.
Lastly, I will be endorsing a candidate for office. And I promise, my endorsement process will come with more than three words (“I endorse X”). I’m not giving up on my commitment to help the community.
Inspiring Others
My biggest hope is that I inspired others to realize they too can run for Congress. Yes, there is a lot of stuff to figure out, but it isn’t out of reach for anyone. I hope to inspire everyone to consider running for public service one day. Besides all the tough spots, there is something meaningful about throwing yourself into the arena, pushing forward the biggest problems you see in our beautiful country, and fighting for the future.
What would you do if there was no chance of failure?
What if you had no fear of failure, what journey would you take? It wasn’t until about a year ago that I started thinking in this mindset after watching a Stanford lecturer’s case for taking asymmetric risks. The two most dangerous words are “not now.” It will always feel like the wrong time. I know I am happiest when I am pursuing my biggest dreams. This is why I decided to run for Congress.
Part II: Why did I run in the first place
Why Run?
Yes, I am young. I am 28 years old. But an ambitious 28-year-old who brings a deceptively expansive amount of experience in business, policy, environmentalism, and activism. I’m tireless, competitive, and thoughtful.
I’ve been enthralled with the outdoors after I went on my first backpacking trip in California’s Trinity Alps a dozen years ago. Since then, I’ve been committed to protecting the planet. I’ve watched wildfires burn some of the most precious groves of trees and algal blooms destroy pristine lakes. But this issue is so much more. Climate change is interwoven into all parts of our life and economy. No one deserves to be at risk of permanent lung damage due to wildfire smoke, no one deserves to watch their house succumb to 1,000-year floods, no child deserves to be nervous about a livable future on this planet. For the past ten years, I have been fighting to solve climate change. From environmental science research to trail work. From climate investing to leading corporate sustainability programs. I’ve talked to over a hundred climate companies and met with dozens of climate scientists and policymakers. It is evident to me that there is a lot of expertise in climate research and business, but we must do better in policy and legislation. I’ve worked for the New Hampshire and Vermont state legislatures as a policy researcher in natural resources and economics. I have also worked for the Utah state legislature in laying the groundwork to create a green bank. I know that history doesn’t remember the “cynics, the critics, or the armchair quarterbacks.” I’m a doer of this world, an adventurist and explorer.
The average age of a Senator is 65. Despite inaccurate textbook drawings, this isn’t what our Founding Fathers looked like. Alexander Hamilton was 21 and James Madison was 25 when the Declaration of Independence was signed. The Constitution itself was written by founding fathers who were in their early 30s and 40s.
Throughout American history, each new generation has risen to bring our country forward. We’ve overcome everything from world wars to polio. It’s time for young leaders to rise up.
Why This?
After spending time in 1) climate investing, 2) climate startups, and 3) climate policy - I think if you aren’t a physicist or chemist, the biggest way to fight climate change with leverage is through policy – especially at the federal level. I never really looked at the California legislature. State Senator Josh Becker and State Assemblymember Mark Berman (in our district) are climate warriors. Running against them at a local level didn’t make sense. Climate isn’t a local problem; it is a global problem that requires a global solution.
The 16th district is the epicenter of climate tech and innovation: we are home to some of the nation’s biggest climate companies, the most climate startups, the best climate researchers, and my favorite climate activists. I did an informal poll when I was collecting signatures and found that a majority of Palo Alto residents list climate change as one of their top three concerns. With the average income of $160,000 and median home price of $1.9 million, this is a rare district that can afford to prioritize climate policy.
I have never understood the logic of why someone should do a career first before running for office if they actually want to make change today. We don’t have time to waste.
Part III: What I did, what worked, and what didn’t
Getting on the Ballot
In September, I told my family I wanted to run. This was a thought I was mulling over for the previous six months. The first step was figuring out how in the world one goes about getting on the ballot. The process is a little more complicated than it should be and involved about six car trips to Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters. But, I found the staff there to be extremely helpful.
I decided I wanted to try to go the route of getting signatures instead of paying to get on the ballot. Collecting signatures was not easy. For one, you need to be a registered voter in the area and your signature needs to match the one on file. Regardless, collecting signatures was a great way to start talking to voters to refine your pitch. Being able to iterate fast is helpful.
After I collected my signatures, I had to go back to the Registrar to pull my candidate papers. To shorten the story, it involved a lot of learning legal jargon and time spent on Google searches. Looking back, having an experienced campaign manager on the ground here would have made the process 10x easier. But I enjoyed learning how everything worked.
Build a Team
At first, it was extremely tough to build a team when Anna Eshoo was in the race. No one wanted to work against an incumbent (especially a strong one like Anna). However, the day she retired, I received multiple emails about people wanting to work for me. Running a campaign is like being a CEO. You don’t get time to focus on policy, you are focused on building a team that can “sell” you.
Most Congressional campaigns have a few key hires: campaign manager, finance director, media consultant, mail team, and compliance officer. I also had a few other key volunteers. A deputy campaign manager who volunteered to help with odds and ends for 25 hours per week. A real angel/hero. It is people like Tami who inspired me every day. A social media team of undergraduate students who were fantastic at getting out posts. And then, last, but not least were the volunteers – I had 150 volunteers to help with canvassing, phone banking, texting, etc.
Fundraising – the virtuous/vicious cycle
To prove you are a viable candidate, you have to show the ability to raise money. You need money to get more money. It is a virtuous or vicious cycle. If you can raise a big number – it is a signal that voters like you, and therefore you are more likely to get other donors to follow or get more media attention. While I knew I wouldn’t be the biggest fundraiser in the race, I knew that I needed to be able to raise six figures before the first filing deadline of 12/31.
To raise money, I spent most of my time calling and emailing my rolodex. Think about doing this for every friend you have ever made, every friend of your parents/siblings, all previous co-workers, etc. On one hand it was fun to catch up with my network, but it often felt like I was only taking and not giving back. Beyond phone calls, I also sent an email to everyone who has ever emailed me in the past 20 years.
Outside of the rolodex, I had to network relentlessly. Whenever I went to a dinner with people I didn’t know, I tried to solicit funds. It is part of the job, but not a fun part. I always had to be in fundraising mode. We also had lists of past Democratic donors that we spent time calling – while I found this to be good practice pitching myself, but the ROI wasn’t really there.
Overall, I’m proud of our fundraising, we hit $108k by 12/31 – which was a ton of work – given that we were only at $70k around mid-December. By the time we hit the primary, we had raised just shy of $150,000 with 501 donations.
Being 28 years old, it is a lot tougher to get “whales” or individuals who will max out. I was beyond grateful when I saw friends who were in debt give me $50. I knew that was the amount they would spend on their next four meals, and it meant a lot seeing their sacrifice.
Building an Online Brand
One of the first steps of the campaign was building a website, which I built myself on Squarespace. Getting the messaging right was an iterative process of working with friends who were good editors.
The website was viewed by 15,184 people from launch to primary (56% direct, 30% through search, 7% through my own social media, and 7% through referral). Engagement was quite high, for instance, viewers stayed on the homepage for 75 seconds on average, on the ‘about’ page for 200 seconds on average, and my ‘issues’ page for 110 seconds on average.
We also sent out a weekly newsletter, which had nearly 2,000 subscribers, and 900 consistent readers (who scrolled through the entire message). This was a great way to get my message out and amplify my voice and team accomplishments.
Building a Social Media Presence
We built up a social media presence creating pages on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, Fizz, and NextDoor. We had a team of five undergraduates who helped me manage these platforms. Our strategy was to post three types of content: informational posts, event-oriented posts, and fun posts. We got out dozens of posts with tens of thousands of impressions. On Meta and Twitter, we posted a few times a week and gained 800 followers. On LinkedIn I posted five times and got nearly 10,000 impressions each time. We also tried using new platforms like Fizz and NextDoor focused on local-oriented networks. I think these are underutilized platforms, which should be used more often by campaigns.
I learned though that spending effort on social media isn’t always worth the time – even if you gain 1,000 incremental followers, it is unlikely more than 10% of them are voters in the district. This is because many followers live outside of the country, outside of California, or weren’t old enough to vote. While more followers might help you look more legitimate on your profile, the incremental work to get there isn’t worth the time to get voters.
Endorsements (Organizations and People)
Overall, we got over 105 endorsements from a variety of local community leaders. Interest groups and PACs are a whole different beast. Each group has its own 10-15 question questionnaire they want you to complete. If they like your answers, they will then interview you. We completed over 30 questionnaires, and I did nearly 20 interviews. I talked about this above, but these endorsement interviews aren’t really interviews – they are mostly looking for your viability.
The process helped get me connected to many organizations, I got to learn what mattered most to them, and started to build my network.
I spoke with two members of Congress and one Senator as well. Again, it was almost impossible to get endorsements before the primary.
Paid Media and Mail
The main source of spending for any campaign should be towards getting your message out and building your brand through mass marketing. We launched a mail campaign and sent a mailer to 24,000 households in the district.
We also created, wrote, filmed, and produced four ads that were used for online visual spots. Here were some of our accomplishments: YouTube – 935,817 impressions, Premium CTV – 148,477 impressions, Programmatic/Native – 94,659 impressions, Facebook/Instagram – 31,088 impressions, Search – 2,876 impressions.
We focused on YouTube since it was the lowest cost per video (about $0.03 per view), and premium CTV (like Hulu), since you can target 1:1 ($0.09 per view). I was surprised that it was especially difficult to target through Meta effectively, and that platform was extremely expensive, so we cut funding short. That is a recent change on the Meta platform which used to be a goldmine. Individuals like AOC were some of the first to really leverage Meta to target voters – now that playbook is ineffective and costly.
Earned Media (Articles and Podcast Guests & Letter to Editors)
Earned media (e.g. press) was one of my major focuses – it is free and powerful. I collected a database of all reporters who covered the race and tried to get coffee with each of them. We also realized that reporters don’t like it when you just give them press releases, you must make them part of the story.
Our campaign got a good amount of press, even with one of the lowest budget in the race. We significantly punched above our own weight here. For instance, we were featured in: Inside Climate News, San Jose Spotlight, Palo Alto Weekly, Stanford Daily, The Dartmouth, Nerds for Humanity Podcast, Cherie’s Corner Podcast, Mountain View Voice, Jerusalem Post, Geeks of the Valley Podcast.
We also did something unique by asking supporters who were extremely passionate, to send in Letters to the Editor to all local newspapers. Here are some that were published: SF Chronicle, San Mateo Daily Journal, Half Moon Bay Review, Mercury News
Every week I asked my team to come to our weekly Tuesday meetings with an earned media idea. Many of our ideas didn’t get news (i.e. biking around the district), but if I did it again, I would keep focusing more time here. It is a powerful way to get leverage.
Debates
I participated in six debates throughout the primary process. The problem with debates is that 80 people show up and 78 have already made up their minds. But it is a great way to get your brand out there, establish yourself, and network with the other candidates. Here are the videos from our debates in case you had some free time! Palo Alto, League of Women Voters, Climate Debate, Los Altos Institution Debate, Pacifica, Half Moon Bay.
Field Organization
My goal was to meet as many voters as possible – and hit the field hard through canvassing (i.e. door knocking). We bought the voter file, which is shockingly more data than I expected – you get every voter’s name, address, birthday, voting record and often their email, and phone. We organized a field campaign to knock on doors four days a week across the district. We also designed palm cards and handed out Joby for Congress pens to everyone we met.
The scripts and pamphlets were designed with persuasion research in mind. I worked with persuasion professors to craft the script to use as many persuasion tactics as possible. We also organized a recurring list of volunteers (mostly GSB and Stanford students) to come knock on doors.
We focused on dense areas where we could hit Democratic voters (who voted in 3 of the last four elections). We hit ~5,000 doors in Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Menlo Park, Redwood City, Pacifica, Half Moon Bay, Moss Beach, and Los Gatos. We also created yard signs and distributed 250 signs. Plus, the fan favorites were Joby for Congress hats for volunteers.
During the day of the election, we staffed volunteers at the voting locations – however, this was in hindsight a waste of resources since turnout was so low. But all together, I’m worried the focus on field activities wasn’t too effective.
Virtual Field Organizations
First, this included a personalized texting and email campaign. Over 10% of my budget was spent on texting. The goal was to send out as many personalized text messages as possible. We sent 209,645 texts to voters. The texts were personalized based on name and town, but we also focused on building bottoms up segments such as: High school students and college students, Women voters, Spanish speaking and Chinese speaking voters (where my friends from Spain and China crafted the texts), Voters who are originally from New York (like me), Israeli voters, likely Jewish voters, Stanford voters, climate focused voters, voters who lived in a two-mile radius from nearby field events (like hikes, beach clean ups, or debates). We also sent birthday texts – which we automated each day based on voters’ birthdays
Plus, we launched an email campaign to hit all the voters in the district. Sadly this led to my email being marked as spam, but we sent emails to:
o Introduce myself to new voters, or voters who haven’t voted recently
o Help voters make a plan to vote
o Persuade voters to vote for me
Each email went out to an audience size of 25,000 – 71,000 people – but the open rates were only from 5-10%
Speaking Engagements
I was active in pursuing speaking engagements, a great way to get leverage and get my message out. Here were some of the types of events I spoke at:
o Democratic Club Holiday Party and Annual Meetings
o Three Stanford classes
o Joined marches and local events
o High school and middle school children
Collaboration
I’m walking away from the campaign being friends with the 9 other candidates. We ran into each other quite a lot on the campaign trail. Peter Dixon and I wrote a climate policy paper together in order to elevate the issue of climate change. I signed the No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge and challenged other candidates to do the same on social media. Three other candidates accepted my challenge and signed the pledge.
This is the list that outlines some of the major things we accomplished and why. Along the way there were dozens of blog posts, speeches, and meet & greets. It is truly impressive looking back at the sprint we did in a few short months. I’m not sure I would have taken this one if I saw this list beforehand.
Will I run for office again?
Probably yes, but I need to complete a checklist first:
Wider community name recognition
Rolodex of individuals who want to endorse and support me
A campaign manager Day 1 on the ground.
Joby playing small does not serve the world. Sam Altman has said that he wants each new project he takes on to make the rest of his career look like a footnote.
Life is short and there aren’t many opportunities to change the world. We each get short window in time to live whatever dream you have. You won’t wake up with regrets.
‘The world offers itself to your imagination.’
