Colorado’s Political Powerhouses
Summary
Of businesses active in every election-year this decade, Gumbiner & Davies had the highest average political receipts.
IRN Inc, the backbone of Democrat’s state-level coordination has had the most consistent income this decade.
Qdoba had the fastest, most consistent growth in political receipts.
IRN’s high and consistent income makes it an organization worthy of watching going forward.
Introduction
John Frank of The Colorado Sun recently posed the question — “Who in Colorado politics is the person (or group) to watch in 2020 and why?”
I’ve read enough painful profiles on “political up-and-comers” that the question made me cringe. But it also got me thinking, is there a quantitative way to answer this question?
As the saying goes — “You’re worth what you’re paid.” So I turned to Colorado’s campaign finance data to find out who Colorado politicos trust/need/rely on the most.
Total Receipts
The below table shows which businesses were paid the most by Colorado campaigns and committees this decade. Only election-year receipts are counted and the businesses are ranked according to those with the highest election-year average. The list is further narrowed to only those firms that were paid something in every election-year this decade. This gives us the businesses and consultancies that are consistently the most influential in Colorado elections.
On the Left
Six of the top ten earners are Democrat aligned. Reiter & Associates is borderline since they focused on ballot issues but were minimally employed by the Hickenlooper campaign so they’re being characterized as blue.
Gumbiner & Davies looks to be the go-to operation for Democrat direct mail efforts. The Strategy Group is similar, but with a broader media portfolio. RBI Strategies is a Colorado based outfit that does general media and advertising as well. And Rocky Mountain Voter Outreach appears to mostly be in the business of paid canvassing. Democrat’s have every facet of campaigning covered between these few firms and they appear to rely on them heavily and consistently.
IRN Inc
Then there’s IRN Inc, this nebulously named business earns it’s income almost exclusively from “research.” And that income is significant, IRN is the third highest recipient of Colorado political cash. And they don’t even have a web page! The business was registered by one of those LLC mills so there’s no public record their leadership either.
Several other entities also make use of the PO box that IRN lists as it’s business address. These include Colorado Civic Education where the famous Al Yates is the registered agent.
The same PO box hosts the African American Civic Engagement Initiative which is registered to Terrance Carroll.
The Blueprint thoroughly documented this network of Democrat-aligned nonprofits years ago so none of this should be too revelatory. What I do find striking, though, is how large and relevant the cornerstone of this operation continues to be even a decade after Witwer and Schrager published their exposé.
On the Right
Kennedy Enterprises had the highest average receipts on the Republican side solely based on their 2016 income. Having now lost their legal fight with the 2018 Stapleton campaign over their fraudulent signature gathering it’s unlikely they’ll remain relevant.
Majority Strategies is Republicans’ go-to outfit for direct mail. Colorado Media Group handles media and advertising, as the name suggests.
Insight Colorado is the Republican attempt at an answer to Democrat’s IRN Inc. However, Insight’s average income was less than half that of IRN’s over the past decade. This is a painful illustration of the greater scope of Democrat’s network of allied organizations.
Consistency
Income from campaigns and elections is extremely variable. As Kennedy Enterprises proves, an organization can be a major force in one election and totally defunct in the next. To make sure we’re looking at the real “top-dogs” and not businesses that picked up one big client one year, we have to control for swings in their income each cycle.
I’ll spare you the math, but it’s basically a level adjusted measure of variance.
The results are very revealing — the most consistent earners are IRN Inc. and Insight Colorado. This is to be expected as they aren’t dependent on clients but, instead, serve as vehicles for each side to skirt coordination laws. Despite taking in less cash, the consistency of their income makes these players more relevant than the higher-paid consultancies.
The consistency of IRN’s income is even more impressive because it isn’t just one of the most consistent among the high-earners, but among everyone. Of the 1,000 businesses that received campaign cash in every election-year this decade, IRN’s payments were the 16th most consistent.
Rising Stars
The analysis so far has shown us who the major players in Colorado politics have been over the past decade. But what about the rising stars? Are there businesses that have been growing their political revenue but still fall short of massive earners like Gumbiner & Davies or The Strategy Group? The answer might surprise you.
To answer this question I looked for businesses that have only ever posted positive growth between election-years. From there it’s simply a matter of sorting out those with the highest average growth this decade. The business with the highest, consistently positive, growth in political revenue — Qdoba. I know what you’re thinking, “Qdoba? Not Chipotle?” I have no explanation for that either. But it does go to show that we, as politicos, should not underestimate the power of a large burrito…
In all seriousness, though, this analysis does throw up some interesting results. The most interesting is that out of 50,000 unique entities that have been paid by Colorado campaigns and committees over the past decade, only 18 have posted consistently positive growth in their political receipts. And while Qdoba isn’t a very interesting member of this 18, moving down the list shows some that are.
Google, is a close second to Qdoba. No doubt indicative of organizations increasingly relying on the tech giant for their internal infrastructure as well as an increased capacity to launch digital ad campaigns internally.
Number eight on the list is ActBlue, Democrat’s unified fundraising platform which has been credited for their small-donor fundraising prowess. Republicans are desperate for their own ActBlue which has led to the roll-out of WinRed this cycle.
2020
Colorado’s attention in 2020 will mostly be focused on the Presidential campaign followed by our very competitive U.S. Senate race. To the extent that anyone pays attention to local politics this cycle, the shadowy IRN Inc is the group to watch. The consistently large amount of money that flows through IRN means watching their receipts and activities will provide a reliable read as to what Democrats find important locally in 2020.
Technical Notes
Why only businesses?
Campaigns and committees live very fleeting lives, especially in Colorado. Most committees are simply shells that get stood up for a single cycle to support a cause or candidate before being shut down at the end. Businesses, on the other hand, endure in the same form over many cycles.
Political operations in Colorado are also dominated by novices. Colorado’s campaign finance laws mean anyone trying to make a career in politics eventually ends up leaving the state. Democrats have figured this out, this is why their two biggest consultants are from out of state. The Colorado brain-drain results in consultants exerting a lot of control over the operations of their Colorado clients. Lastly, the most visible parts of a campaign are all things produced by businesses and consultants — things like TV ads, direct mail, and digital advertising.
Methodology
This analysis was conducted in Jupyter using simple sums. Errors in the TRACER expenditure file were corrected using the Fuzzywuzzy module in Python.
