Interview with Mark Riddle, President of Future Majority

"A lot of candidates run now for personal brand building and not about the X's and O’s and winning. And it's very frustrating to watch this happen."

Mark Riddle is a big deal in national politics. He’s currently the Founder and President of Future Majority, and previously was a Founder of the Pro-Biden Super PAC Unite the Country, which raised $75 million in the 2020 cycle, and President of New Leaders Council, a prestigious network of young political leaders. Mark has worked extensively with me and my team at Change Research, and he is one of the smartest, savviest political strategists I’ve worked with.

I interviewed Mark on May 25, 2022, and as usual he had lots of interesting stories and political insights. The interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Mike Greenfield (MG): Thanks for joining me, Mark. I’ve learned a ton about the practice of politics from you, and Modern Power readers could learn a lot from you too.

You've been around a ton of different political campaigns over the years. Can you talk about some of the things that separate successful campaigns from less successful ones? 

Mark Riddle (MR): Yeah. One easy place to start: winning campaigns aren't necessarily well-run campaigns and losing campaigns aren't necessarily poorly-run campaigns.

A lot of politics is environmental, but I think what separates successful efforts from non-successful efforts is: do you have a plan? Do you have a budget? Do you have a certain set of principles or a mission that you're working on? 

Too often, people get involved in these things and they don't know how many votes it takes to win, or they don't understand the fundamentals of budgeting or they don't understand the fundamentals of writing out a a business plan starting from election day backwards.

Too often candidates go “I'm running,” they hire somebody. You know, my favorite saying in politics is never confuse activity with progress. Months and months and months go by and nothing really happens. And so you need a plan.

You need to understand that whether it's a vote goal, a message goal, or whatnot, and then work backwards from there.

And you need to have it be realistic and set realistic expectations. Don’t go in thinking “I'm going to raise $30 million” in a state like Kentucky, where usually you raise several million because it's not a wealthy state.

And don’t go in thinking somehow that some magical buttons on the keyboard or in a tweet can get you all kinds of low dollar donations because you think you're cool and have some followers. That stuff is like striking lightning. So have a realistic plan. Have it written down, have quarterly meetings following up, make sure you're following those things. Have a budget.

And be accountable to the people who invest in you. 

MG: Yeah. There are certainly some similarities with startups and building companies. 

How much do you think that most campaigns should shift midstream? Should they be more flexible or, or should they say “this is what we're going to do and we're going to follow our plan.”

MR: You can shift tactics, but I don't think you necessarily do well shifting a lot of strategies. You may put more points¹ here, another mail piece there, another digital ad here, depending on what the research says, but shifting based on current events is never a good idea.

You should set out a plan to win and follow that plan. Too often campaigns believe that campaigns are based on Twitter and it's just not true.

Particularly when like 8% of voters actually pay attention to Twitter. 

MG: And you see a lot of candidates who care disproportionately about Twitter?

MR: Yes they care disproportionally about Twitter. And I think one of the unfortunate things is that you now have candidates running to be celebrity candidates and not necessarily candidates who can win or who can make a difference, even if they lose. I feel like a lot of candidates run now for personal brand building and not about the X's and O’s and winning. And it's very frustrating to watch this happen because the stakes in American elections are so high, be it at the local level, state level, or federal level.

I feel as though people think, oh, I can be a Twitter star, like an Instagram model. Why do that? You should run with a purpose and if the purpose isn't to win, go work on an advocacy thing.

People invest money into winning. 

MG: We see some campaigns that are successful raising money that have no chance of winning. 

MR: Yeah. And listen, one of the things interesting this cycle for 2022, as opposed to 2020 and even 2018, I'm seeing a lot less of that. I'm seeing much more strategic focus from the donors, even the grassroots donors.

They're not going crazy, trying to beat everybody. A massive amount of money was poured into unwinnable races in 2020. The cash balances afterwards for these campaigns startled folks.

2022 is much more tactical right now. Trump made everybody a little bit irrational, so I'm not being negative. We were adjusting. 

MG: Yep. That makes sense. And it jives with what I'm hearing and seeing. 

MR: Give to Warnock not Booker.

I love Charles Booker. Charles is great. He's a friend. I’m a donor because he's a friend and I believe in my state. 

But the fact that Amy McGrath had about a hundred million dollars in a non winnable race, it was just silly. That money could have been used in other races, particularly state and local races for state legislatures and secretaries of state. Let’s use that money smartly.

MG: You and I have worked together a lot on finding what sort of things voters care about how and to speak to them.

Can you talk through one or two places where you've had success in finding messages and finding things that really resonate with people and, and how you came up with them and got to them? 

MR: Sure. A great one was in 2018, all the collaborative work and around the For the People agenda and the House led by the Democratic policy and communications team working with a new set of data from Change Research and in developing a mission which was For the People. They had three points: better jobs and better wages, lowering health care costs, and a clean environment.

It sounds really simple, but to get to that required a lot of work by a lot of people, and it led to a win.

I think the great challenge in 2022 is that that sort of messaging discipline needs to go from the White House to the state house. We're honored to be part of that.

Can we pull it off? It's to be determined, but I think a lot of progress is being made and we have to remember, it's still early.

I think one of my favorite kind of movement campaigns was in your state of California, when Arnold Schwarzenegger, his theme song was Twisted Sister, We're Not Gonna Take It. Things like that can be kind of fun. They hit a movement and they hit a moment and you know, that sort of thing. I think people make politics really complicated, and it's about finding a couple of basic points and sticking to them.

Like Robert Redford says in the back of the limo in The Candidate, it’s so tiring to say the same thing over and over and over again. But that's the only way you can get through. 

MG: Is there a story you think is resonating most right now for Democrats specifically?

MR: Yeah, I think that's a really interesting question, Mike. I don't think so right now, honestly. I think there's a wish that some of our leaders could be more like the President of Ukraine, Zelensky, and speak truth to power and stand up against power and go in and put their lives down on the line and not be run out of town.

I think the public's looking at that distinction. They're seeing somebody like Zelensky who's strong and visible, authentic. He’s very stable.

And then you look at some of our leaders here in our country. Our politics is really broken.

I think our leaders have to break some molds of what people look at as leadership.

Why is Congress going home on a Thursday night when working families are struggling with gas prices and other things?

They write it off in Washington as, “oh, it's complicated, we don't have much we can do about it.”

Well, politically you can do something: keep your butts in Washington! Roll up your sleeves, sharpen the pencil, start counting pennies.

Why aren’t we putting the oil companies on national TV at six o'clock at night, giving testimony? Why aren't there midnight meetings in Washington?

Our political leadership is just kind of going along to get along. I think the American people are looking at somebody like Zelensky going “maybe that’s what we kind of want right now.” In a weird way, Trump tried that but he was just so inept in so many ways and had so many character flaws.

And I do think people are looking for strong leadership and they're not seeing it right now. It's unfortunate because the President is actually a person of conviction. He’s very stable. But it's not breaking through because they're not visible. 

MG: Are there stories or narratives you feel are counterproductive?

MR: Counterproductive in the midterm?

MG: Yes.

MR: I think this obsession on the Democratic side around what progressive tables call the Race-Class Narrative is counterproductive and a waste of time and money. There's nothing that shows voters go there. There's no second sentence. I think the Race-Class Narrative is sucking up a lot of time and energy. That's obviously a food fight that needs to be fought.

And there's a lot of push polling right now that they're trying to claim is real polling. I mean, they should just put a big disclaimer on anything that says “from [one specific polling firm]” as just being crap, or that this is their agenda and they're spinning the numbers up to do it.

I really do worry about the misinformation as much from the left as the right, honestly, towards our policy making,

We can go chase down every rabbit hole on the cultural stuff on the right. I've yet to see the Republicans get over 44 percent. I think we should be much more focused on kitchen table issues and economics, and meet voters where they are.

So I think there's a lot of energy spent on things that voters don't care about. We need to get laser focused on kitchen table issues, better jobs, better wages, fighting this inflation fight, and then drawing strong contrasts with the Republicans.

Republicans voted against lowering costs. They voted against the price gouging bill at the gas stations, voted against the baby formula stuff. They voted against $35 insulin.

I think we Democrats are going to have to make a clear contrast in order to win. 

MG: That sounds clear and logical. But I know that there are things pulling Democrats in 19 other directions. 

MR: In fairness, for four years, if not five years, Trump was the sun, the moon, the stars that united Democrats from the far left to the middle — even a lot of independents — that we've got a clear and present danger to the country.

You had five years of pent up “I want to go do my thing” and now they're trying to do their thing.

There's a great book called The Politics of Upheaval that Arthur Schlesinger wrote about Roosevelt's time, I think 1933-35.

You could literally insert the names of today into that book and not change a sentence and see how history often repeats itself. It would behoove a lot of our folks to think a little bit more about history and things that worked and didn’t work as opposed to thinking these are new things. You’ve had very similar times throughout history. I think too often we think, oh, we're the only time in this moment. That's just not true. 

People who have all these fancy books behind them should actually read the damn things. That would be helpful. 

MG: The Robert Caro books on Lyndon Johnson are great.

MR: It's instructive, you know, the more things change the more they stay at the same.

I'd almost like everybody to take a day and read history. I think we'd be better off.

MG: Modern Power is focused on effective government and getting stuff done. Who are leaders that you admire for their skill and ability to get things done?

MR: I thought what Hakeem Jeffries and Cory Booker did with Jared Kushner, and some of the Republicans on criminal justice reform is really important. I think, what Senator Manchin did — I know I’m not going to be popular for saying this — what Senator Manchin, Senator Sinema, and the other senators did to get infrastructure through the Senate and then a real shoutout to Congresswoman Beatty from Ohio, who's the Congressional Black Caucus Chair, for then getting the rest of everybody on board. I don't think people fundamentally understand how important that infrastructure money is to the future of the country. And it's been kind of glossed over.

Then obviously I think the master legislator of all is Nancy Pelosi, if you look at ACA, infrastructure, and the Recovery Act. You know, she can go pound for pound with anybody in history about getting important things done. I don't think she gets the credit or recognition for it, but I think when the history books are on the shelf, she'll be right up there with FDR and others about legislating and being a legislator and getting things done.

MG: I hope that Robert Caro lives long enough to do a book on Pelosi.

MR: It may be Meacham, but sure.

MG: From a sort of similar angle, how can successful tech entrepreneurs help drive effective government and really make a difference in politics? What would you advise?

MR: Well, to be a little selfish about it. I think we're doing that with Future Majority, using the power of data. Data drives healthcare, data drives finance, data drives baseball. Data drives about everything. Horse race betting, whatever. Politics for whatever reason has been allergic to data and big data to help make decisions.

Obviously some economists weigh in, but they're about as good as weathermen on most days. But I think that what Change Research has done with democratizing data and what we've done at Future Majority about building large data sets with a lot of questions to help inform our leaders, frankly is the best way.

When you provide leaders with good objective data over and over on a consistent basis and big data sets with big numbers attached to them, you can have impact above and beyond spending $5 million on a Super PAC for some candidate who may or may not win — or $17 million in Oregon.

Arming leaders in the business with that data has been incredibly effective. And listen, Joe Biden in large measure is President today because people in Silicon Valley — a few people in Silicon Valley — listened to the data over the dating game and made smart decisions early on when the math showed that Biden was our best bet.

I was honored to be a leader in that process. I think that can be replicated more often than not. A lot of money is wasted for friends or personalities or Twitter celebrities and not “what does the data show and how should we back that?”

And policy can be created and carried through if you provide really good information and good data. A lot of HR1 was born that way.

I saw the anti-corruption numbers pop, particularly in 2017 and early 2018, much higher than what I had seen before. And to her credit, Nancy Pelosi said, ''Hey, we have a whole working team on this. Let's arm them with some data and let's get this done." And HR1 became the lead House bill.

It got trampled on because Georgia happened. And John Lewis happened and it got combined with voting rights, which is a plenty reasonable and rightful thing. But the anti-corruption piece — that was all driven through data and really strong leadership by folks like Sarbanes — kind of got lost.

MG: Can you talk about how an outsider can use that data to influence and help drive the actual policy making and process. I know you've had a fair amount of success with that. Can you talk about how you’ve done it?

MR: You've got to be honest with legislators. If something that you had recommended doesn't work anymore, you’ve gotta be honest about it. Then you've got to — one of my mentors always says — go in with the two pager and with the 10 pager and then have the 170 pager ready. Some of the leaders may read a page or two, some may dive in a little bit more, do the eight to 10 slide thing. And then some of them will dig in and read the whole book and you’ve gotta kind of have those products ready there. If you just create everything as a one pager, they're going to gloss over it.

And so you’ve got to understand which members or which leaders kind of will be interested in one, two or three, or maybe all. Senator Chris Coons will read a thousand pages. Some of his colleagues maybe one.

So I think you have to know your audience and you've gotta be consistent and you've gotta be respectful of their time. You've got to not cry wolf every time there's some problem, then you've got to give them options because these are smart people who've obviously been elected. Maybe not all of them are smart, but a lot of them are smart and, you've got to be respectful of that and give them a menu of options to think through themselves. Don’t say one size fits all.

MG: Have you found that elected officials listen to and pay attention to data?

MR: Yes. The most amazing thing to me in this whole process since 2017 was I had always just assumed — assumed is a wrong word in life — but assumed that there was this room and people were thinking about this stuff. When we started, I kept kind of going well, you know, at some point somebody is going to throw up the stop sign and say, “We got this handled. Thanks guys, go away.”

We realized pretty quickly that the independent expenditure side had a lot of information, but the elected officials themselves were hungry for information that wasn't interest group driven. That was much more about strategy and policy and, you know, helping them in their day-to-day jobs and they were really receptive to that.

Even people who have a lot of access to information were receptive to that. And so you should just not assume that this stuff is being done because it wasn't and Future Majority has done well working with you all [Change Research].

MG: Could you walk through what you have done research-wise?

MR: Yeah, sure. Listen, we had the basic idea that Democrats shouldn’t cede the word “freedom” to the Republicans — it’s one of our strategic imperatives.

We also thought the majority of the messaging shouldn't be written by some 25 year old kid who worked at a party committee for a year and got hired as a consultant ‘cause they know three or four people. We have experts in storytelling. And we also have experts in data.

The third tenet we were founded upon was we didn't feel as though after doing our homework, that there was a lot of strategic thinking. There was a lot of rapid response. We needed to think more strategically.

So we wanted to kind of fill those three lanes and, you know, a lot of it is luck. We had good relationships with some key folks who ended up being in leadership.

But we also knocked on doors. I think I counted: in 2017 and early 2018, we had like 300 meetings.

A lot of people don't do this because it is hard work to try to stay in front of folks. It's very easy to write an email, hit send, it goes out to a list, and you don't follow up. It is very hard work to get a meeting, go to Washington or Sacramento or New York City or wherever, have meetings, think through stuff, get opinions — a lot of opinions, clearly staying legal about all those opinions — and then do the follow-up.

Having good partners has really helped. Stephen Clermont on the Change Research team is brilliant. Give him a complex set of issues, we can kind of figure it out. A lot of your other team's brilliant too, but I'll give a hat tip just to my partner in crime, Stephen.

MG: Yeah, I know. You and he have gone have gone deep and probably asked thousands of different questions.

MR: We've have now poll tested 147,000 voters since we started — primarily in swing districts and swing states with ginormous samples. I can't even imagine how many data points that we actually have.

Actually, I'd love to know that. It's probably millions of data points that we've shifted through at this point for, to come up with the three points that we recommend.

Yeah.

And that's not easy work.

MG: No but I think it’s usually the best way to do it.

So a slightly different line of questioning. One of the focuses of Modern Power is housing policy. It’s an issue that divides Democrats in California, between NIMBYs who oppose most new housing and YIMBYs who want to create policies that will make it easier to build.

We are pretty strongly on the YIMBY side. How do you think about approaching an issue like that?

MR: I tend to view politics through the equality of opportunity, Mike, and housing is really no different.

What we've seen in our data is — and this was long before the inflation fight — people are struggling to get ahead. You are getting 60 to 70% of people consistently saying they're falling behind not paying their bills. That means they're taking out loans, racking up credit card charges, borrowing. Then 20% say they're kind of staying even. Maybe half of those people are kind of lying.

Such a small sliver is getting ahead. I think housing is a prime example of this. I think in many of these cities, the way that the grids and the roads and the bridges and stuff were set up was to divide instead of bring people together.

We need that part of the infrastructure project. That’s why I love Pete Buttigieg actually being there — he’s just so smart — thinking through how we redesign some of these urban areas.

We see that in Louisville. Like, the west end. It's beautiful. It's got a beautiful culture. Right. But we didn't even have a grocery store down there and it was predominantly African-American for a long time.

I think there's just too much division. I think we people who reinvest in communities have done pretty well. I think there's a way to have affordable housing built and keep it within the framework of keeping the city safe.

The key thing for me is if the person who's washing the toilets has to live two hours away to come into a fancy office tower, that's not really equality of opportunity. That person should be able to afford to live close so that it can spend as much time with their family as they can. I think leaders can strike that balance, but they're not right now, but I think that's why I would look at it.

It goes back to my earlier point. I think there are a lot of good people with a lot of good qualities, but there are very few very strong leaders.

They are too much in the defensive crouch, because they're worried about getting bullied on Twitter and not kind of where voters are and the big modern example of this right now is the president of Ukraine.

MG: Yeah. Do you think someone can win an election if they're not on Twitter?

MR: No. It's an important part of our lives. You know, all the reporters live on there and the influencers too. I think needs to be viewed as another communication tool but not the sole communication tool.

“I posted something on Facebook and Twitter. I'm good. I communicated.”

No. You know, you can get a lot of good feedback knocking on doors.

MG: Fun question. You grew up in Maine but you sound like you’ve lived most of your life in Kentucky. How’d that happen?

MR: Well, I often tell people that I grew up in Southern Maine. I was fortunate to go to the University of Kentucky and the people there were very good to me. I was born in upstate New York and I never had an accent. I didn't have the Maine or down Eastern can't get there from here accent.

And so for some reason, it just kind of stuck with me. A lot of people said it was because of politics and it kind of fit in. So it's fine. The more tired I am in a cycle the more it comes out.

MG: I haven’t noticed that but will listen for it in the future.

What are some things you’ve absorbed that Silicon Valley tech geeks should know or consider?

MR: Yeah, I think the biggest thing, as somebody who spent a lot of time out there, is that politics is noble and affects everybody's daily lives. A lot more work needs to be done to bring the tech world and the policy makers together to try to find common solutions that are more interested in the good of society than making a buck.

I love the billionaire tech gods, but there is some question whether or not some of these horrible things happen in society are being precipitated by some of the information that's easily accessible online. Bad acts have always happened. I understand that, and freedom of speech is important.

But our brains are being wired. The first thing you do when you wake up in the morning, you look at your iPhone, you probably look at Facebook and then political people look at Twitter, right?

And only then do you look at the Wall Street Journal, New York Times.

So I think the tech folks understand that they have there have a large footprint in the world. Policymakers are having a hard time keeping up with the speed of change. And I think a lot more work needs to be done to bring kind in the change makers.

We need to bring the policy makers together for the common good and not just whatever is expeditious that day. Mark Zuckerberg isn’t going anywhere. You know, calling him an evil asshole every day won't help you. So I think a lot of work can be done to bring people together.

Part of the problem in Washington right now is it's all just cut and burn — tear people down. The middle has been hollowed out policy-wise. It's hard to get what we saw when I lived in Washington.

In the late nineties and early 2000s, Kennedy could work with McCain, get things done because you had enough votes. We can't even agree what the color of the sky is right now, without a fight.

There are clear things that need to be solved. Kids are able to buy AR-15s and go in and killing people. They don't need it to shoot a deer and they don't need it to protect their family.

We can stop this nonsense, but the divide is too strong. And the tech world has a lot of resources and such a big footprint. They are engaged and they need to get even more engaged on trying to find solutions to problems.

And it's okay if people want to square off politically. That's what a lot of our country is. That's fine. But we’ve got a come together a little bit more, because there is a lot of fear in our country that we're being ripped apart.

The politics of today is a hell of a lot different than what I was growing up in it. Back then, we were like, “they want to cut social security” and they're like, “they want to raise your taxes.” Right. Now it's literally like, “they want to burn down the Capitol” and “they’re are a bunch of socialists who want to destroy America.”

Today it’s a totally different game — and it’s not even really a game. This is serious business but a lot more work can be done, bringing people together. We don’t always need to be on the on cycle. That’s my two cents.

MG: Really appreciate your time and your thoughts.

MR: Happy to share my opinions anytime.

MG: Awesome. Thank you so much. This was informative and fun.

MR: All right. Take care.

1. Points are a measurement of the reach of television ads.