Two hours before the polls closed on Election Day, Derby Democratic insiders were confident they were on their way to a big win — not just in the mayor’s race, but across the board.
It wasn’t false bravado or campaign Kool-Aid. Anita Dugatto’s campaign had done the homework.
They targeted around 1,900 voters they needed to get to the polls and cast ballots. By 6 p.m., roughly 56 percent of the “Anita IDs” had voted, which, based on campaign data, guaranteed a win.
They were correct.
Dugatto defeated four-term Republican incumbent Mayor Anthony Staffieri by 411 votes.
The Democrats also expanded their control of the Board of Aldermen to 7 – 2, took over the town clerk’s office and maintained their majorities on the city’s Board of Apportionment and Taxation and the Board of Education.
The final tally Nov. 5 showed Dugatto received 1,766 votes compared to Staffieri’s 1,334.
On paper it seems the win should not have been surprising. The Dems outnumber Republicans in Derby by a large number, though unaffiliated voters outnumber them all.
But, despite their registration advantage, unseating Staffieri was not a cakewalk for the Dems.
There were plenty of obstacles, including:
- Staffieri had defeated Democrats four times in a row.
- He was touting a tax decrease.
- He is well-known, well-liked and well-respected — a Vietnam veteran and a Purple Heart recipient — in a city were military veterans hold a special place.
- Staffieri had, once again, dwarfed his opponent in fundraising.
Staffieri for Mayor had raised a whopping $48,000 walking into the election.
Dugatto? About $25,000 — including a $10,000 she loaned to her campaign.
So how did Dugatto and the Democrats pull off such a clear-cut win in Derby?
Essentially, they brought the 2012 Barack Obama data crunching re-election strategy to the local level.
The idea was to go beyond door-knocking, mass mailings and relying on a given candidate’s name recognition, the staples of local campaigns.
It was a Democratic new school campaign versus a Republican old school campaign.
“Absolutely that is what happened, and we were hoping for that,” said Vin Tonucci, Dugatto’s campaign manager.
Here is how Dugatto’s campaign worked.
The first thing the Dems did was to look at the past election results. They picked up an obvious pattern. Staffieri wasn’t as popular as he once was, and was elected by the slimmest of margins in 2011.
But that didn’t matter as much as another pattern. During the last two municipal elections, the Democrats had barely made any gains at the top of the ticket.
That told them one thing — whatever strategy the Democrats had been using in the past was not winning over Derby voters.
So the Dems tailored their campaign for Dugatto and brought in outside consultants.
They targeted Democratic women.
They targeted unaffiliated women who were the heads of their households.
They targeted Dems that traditionally didn’t give a hoot about local politics.
They registered new voters.
They didn’t try to convert the opposition.
A four-page internal strategy memo shared with the Valley Indy even quoted (in bold) Jeremy Bird, the national field director of President Obama’s campaign in 2011.
“One of the first lessons I learned as a political operative is that no matter the campaign, there are only three ways to win an election: register new supporters, persuade potential supporters, or turn out existing supporters. The question for every campaign leadership team is to figure out how many resources (if any) and which tactics to use in pursuit of each.”
Enter Tonucci
Vin Tonucci, a former Derby Aldermen and a former state Representative who served as Dugatto’s campaign manager, said the Democrats knew from the start they would not be running a negative campaign this time.
There were many reasons not to go negative. The Valley doesn’t like it, Tonucci said. Furthermore, Staffieri’s background commanded respect.
“Tony is a good guy. People like him. Our campaign wasn’t about painting him as the bad guy,” Tonucci said.
But the Democrats also had to take into account the fact that yes, Dugatto is female.
They spent hours reading research from the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, a group whose mission is to get more women elected to office in the U.S.
It showed them the old stereotype about the perception of female political candidates — go negative and you’re a b**ch.
“A woman can say one thing and a man can say the exact same thing, but they are interpreted completely different,” Tonucci said.
Door-to-Door
Tonucci and the Dems brought in people who knew how to organize campaigns. They hired a consultant, Martin Dunleavy, a popular Democratic political operative.
Tonucci said Dunleavy was the equivalent of a “sergeant” at the Dugatto campaign on Derby Avenue, making sure the slate of candidates — the foot soldiers — followed the game plan and collected important data.
When the Democratic slate went door-to-door, they graded the reaction from the public on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being a guaranteed yes vote and 5 being never in a million years.
The data was brought back to Dugatto headquarters and analyzed by a college student volunteering with the campaign. The data showed the campaign which Derby wards had been hit by candidates, where they were strong, where they needed more visits — and who to target with mailings.
The campaign did not send out mass mailings, partly because they couldn’t afford to pay the postage and partly because mass mailings are counter-productive, Tonucci said.
Why risk angering your opponents while reminding them there’s an election? So the votes not likely to vote for Dugatto didn’t receive mailings.
“Most campaigns send out a mailing to everyone. But those mailings are 60 cents a piece. It’s easier that way, but then you’re taking a risk that you are reminding people not to vote for you,” Tonucci said.
The 1s and the 2s received more than a “thanks!” after a visit from a candidate.
When the targeted voters appeared at the polls on Election Day, the Dems crossed their names off a list. They received phone calls on Election Day, reminding them to vote.
Dugatto herself was knocking on their doors on Election Day — up until about 7 p.m. — to make sure they showed up.
The Obama Voters
In addition to appealing directly to women, Derby Dems crunched data and specifically targeted Democrats who came out during the last two Presidential elections — but did not vote during the most recent city elections.
The assumption was that these registered voters voted twice for Barack Obama, and were likely to vote for the Democratic slate locally — if the door-to-door candidates and campaign mailings could convince them to come out.
“They were an important segment of the voting population,” Tonucci said. “They are the most difficult to get to come out. We knocked on their doors and sometimes they would tell us they only vote on the national level. We had to tell them the mayor’s race really affects you, sometimes more than the other races.”
The turnout of the Democratic presidential voters could explain why some strong Republican incumbents with deep Derby roots — Bev Moran and Scott Boulton come to mind — were swept from office along with Mayor Staffieri.
The Garofalo Factor
Marc Garofalo, a former Derby mayor who successfully ran for city/town clerk, was the wild card in the Derby race.
Republicans viewed him as political poison and were confident his name on the ballot would work against the Democrats.
Democrats viewed him as someone who could guarantee at least 1,000 votes.
Party insiders told the Valley Indy Garofalo’s role was to register new voters during his door-to-door visits, another cornerstone of the Dems’ strategy. Register a voter and that voter is probably going to vote for you.
Garofalo was a workhorse, visiting more than 1,000 homes in the city.
Perhaps equally important was what Garofalo didn’t do — fight in public with Staffieri at Aldermen meetings, something the two had done on more than one occasion.
That was by design, party insiders said.
Post-Election Reaction
Tonucci and Democratic insiders repeatedly pointed out that all the data in the world is useless unless you have a good top-of-the-ticket candidate backed by a hard-working slate. Dugatto and the Dems fit the bill, and them some.
Dugatto, in a brief interview shortly after Election Day, said her election was the result of a true team effort.
“We started working immediately after our announcement. It was a campaign by the numbers and yes, it was carefully targeted,” she said.
The new mayor said she couldn’t credit any single member of the campaign for her victory.
“It’s unfair to single out one person because we were a team. It was a good machine,” she said.
Judy Szewczyk served as Staffieri’s campaign manager in 2011 and 2013.
She said the Dems ran a smart campaign, as evidenced by the final tally. In addition, Derby voters just wanted a change, Szewczyk said.
“So it was somewhat a perfect storm for them,” Szewczyk said. “They deserved the win and I hope they do really well.”
Szewczyk said the lack of progress in the downtown redevelopment zone hurt Derby Republicans. It’s a complicated collection of properties on a state-owned road.
“Each mayor who comes along runs (into) a bunch of roadblocks and doesn’t get as much done as they hoped, or promised to voters,” Szewczyk said. “The voters get impatient and decide to try someone new. I do think that’s the dynamic here.”
Garofalo, who was himself mayor for eight years until being defeated by Staffieri in 2005, said history repeats itself in Connecticut’s smallest city.
Staffieri, when he was first elected Derby mayor, was a small business owner, born and raised in Derby, and was a political newcomer challenging an entrenched incumbent.
The same can be said for Dugatto, Garofalo said.
The ex-mayor said Derby wanted change. Sometimes an incumbent’s campaign loses momentum and the campaign becomes disjointed and unfocused. It happened to him when he lost to Staffieri and then it happened to Staffieri’s campaign against Dugatto, he said.
The Democrats were united this time out. If you wanted to help, you could help, Garofalo said.
“A campaign is about talking to people, but everything is limited. Your resources are limited. Your people are limited. So the more efficient you can be, the better,” Garofalo said. “Ultimately, the Democrats ran a better campaign.”
