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13 of 13 Counties Reporting
. . . . . . . Percent Votes
MIKE CRANE..........46.07% 19,490 Cruz-Trump candidate
DREW FERGUSON 53.93% 22,813 Paul Ryan-Boehner-CoC
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42,303

May 24, 2016 results were
26.9% 15,584 Mike Crane
26.8% 15,491 Drew Ferguson
23.0% 13,312 Jim Pace . . .
09.9% . . 5,728 Chip Flanegan .
09.1% . . 5,285 Richard Mix. .
02.9% . . 1,657 Samuel Anders .
01.4% . . . 812 Arnall Thomas .
Total . . 57,869

In the March 1 SEC Primary in the 13 counties of the 3rd District,
Trump ran 1st ranging from 37% to 56% per county.
Cruz ran 2nd ranging from 21% to 29% per county.
Rubio ran 3rd ranging from 10% to 23% per county.

Conclusion: Crane did not get the Trump/Cruz vote to turn out and vote this election.

Nationally Cruz claimed a ground game. If he had had a ground game, not only would that ground game have made him #1 in this far right district, that effective ground game would still exist to win for Congress. Cruz had over 1500 small donors in this district. Thousands were at Cruz event in the district I was at. The Cruz campaign could have, but did not, enlist them in a ground game.

Don’t take November for granted. If you want to win, find out who your voters are now and get them to vote in October-November. I say October because an effective ground game will produce 20-50 votes per day per precinct in early voting. The ground game can be more effective on the final day of voting when it knows who already voted and can avoid wasting time on them.

I’m in the district, and received the push poll phone calls. I was also at the Cruz/Crane rally last Friday. There were about 600 people in the room.

I believe that Ferguson won because of a frequent and effective advertising from both his self-funded campaign and the Chanmber of Commerce’s $1 million dollar buy in. Crane’s own positive ads were fine, but I believe the Club for Growth’s cookie cutter generic attack ads were unhelpful, if not actually counterproductive.

Part of the problem was timing. The first ads from Ferguson attacking Crane characterized Crane’s pro Fourth and Second Amendment positions, portraying him as someone in favor of shooting cops, the SAME DAY of the Dallas shooting. Great timing for Ferguson. While Cruz is well received in the district, Trump won big in the primary, and Cruz’ campaigning for Crane two days after the convention when even a lot who like Cruz were at least disappointed with his speech at the convention, was again unavoidable bad timing.

One reason why I believe the advertising got a lot of low-information voters out was because in my county, Muscogee, we were mostly for Crane, and Ferguson had no ground game, not even signs, while we did. Ferguson won big (2-1). Even though the third district only covers the northern end of Columbus, Ferguson had the resources to buy into the columbus stations just to get that corner (and probably Harris County, where he also won big.)

The Ferguson ads were often self contradictory (”We need fresh blood . . . we need an outsider . . . Endorsed by Lynn Westmoreland”) and plainly untrue (”Crane is a career politician”, Crane was and IS a contractor, and didn’t hold office until 2010. Crane is in his 50s.)

Interesting side note: When I saw Cruz atthe Crane rally, Cruz stated that “Vote Freedom. If Republicans hold on to and promote Freedom, we will keep the House, keep the Senate, and defeat Hillary Clinton and the Democrats for the White House”. No he didn’t say “Vote Trump”, but he did say the Republicans (which mean Trump) should beat Hillary for the presidency. That got him his loudest cheers from the room.