The New York Times: Republicans Scramble to Modernize

Long before Donald J. Trump crashed their party, Republican strategists feared that Democrats had grown more skilled at running campaigns. Now they’re scrambling to keep from falling further behind.

Mr. Trump thwarted a large field of rivals for the Republican nomination by capitalizing on his celebrity, his ubiquitous television presence and his easily understood pledge to “Make America Great Again.”

Television ads, field organization and digital microtargeting had little to do with it.

But other candidates are unlikely to replicate that formula. Beaten twice by President Obama’s data-driven organization, some Republicans say their party needs to adjust its campaign techniques more rapidly to compete with Democrats, regardless of how Mr. Trump fares on Election Day.

“We are still dominated by a culture of people who did grow up in a non-cellphone age,” Michael Meyers, president of TargetPoint Consulting, told a gathering of campaign operatives in Washington last week. “We are ripe for disruption.”

Mr. Meyers, who advised Mitt Romney’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns, said advances since had given Republicans the capacity to identify target voters as precisely as Democrats could. Using smartphone applications, for example, technicians can find gun enthusiasts who visited shooting ranges in specific counties and help them register to vote.

Yet many campaigns still lean on inefficient and poorly focused habits that fritter away war chests, like spending large sums of money in one state to reach voters in another.

“Only three out of every 100 people who watch TV in Boston are going to vote in the New Hampshire primary,” said Michael Beach, co-founder of Targeted Victory, who advised the primary campaign of Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. “It shouldn’t be the first thing you spend your money on.”

The same pattern plays out in campaigns for the House of Representatives, where most viewers reached by television ads reside outside the particular districts that Republicans and Democrats are fighting over.

Using television to change minds may cost a campaign $1,000 per “persuadable” voter, Mr. Beach noted — 10 times more than identifying and mobilizing an unmotivated voter already on the candidate’s side.

The challenges facing campaigns mirror those confronting media companies, which struggle to balance the still large but dwindling reach of print and broadcast with fast-growing digital distribution.

Some Republican veterans criticize the fee structure of the political consulting industry, which traditionally has paid commissions based on the volume of advertising purchased, as distorting campaign decisions.

“If I could fix one thing on the right-center coalition, it would be to dramatically change how we pay vendors, pay consultants, pay strategists,” said David Carney of Norway Hill Associates, a former adviser to the presidential campaign of Rick Perry, then the governor of Texas.

Paying “win bonuses” rather than commissions is one example of shifts that hold the potential to alter decision-making. “All of us should get ready for that, especially the TV guys,” Mr. Meyers said.

Talk like that makes TV guys bristle. Mike Murphy, a target for criticism after his pro-Jeb Bush “super PAC” had little to show for tens of millions of dollars’ worth of television commercials, chalked up some complaints to simple competition for revenue.

“Digital vendors always trash people who do strong TV,” Mr. Murphy said. “All media works, albeit with individual strengths and weaknesses.”

His efforts on behalf of Mr. Bush, Mr. Murphy added, included sophisticated digital targeting and advertising as well as TV ads. But as for others in the race, they were swamped by the resonance of Mr. Trump’s appeal to a decisive chunk of the Republican base.

That underscores a Republican problem beyond campaign mechanics. The same message Mr. Trump used to vanquish his rivals with the overwhelmingly white Republican primary electorate hasn’t fared as well with the broader universe of November voters.

Modernizing campaign techniques is only part of the solution for Republicans in reversing trends that have given Democrats a popular-vote advantage in five of the last six presidential elections. But it’s a crucial one.