Revitalizing Republican Influence in DeKalb County | Marci McCarthy, DeKalb County GOP

[00:00:21] Keeping our Republic is on the line, and it requires patriots with great passion, dedication, and eternal vigilance to preserve our freedoms.

[00:00:31] Jenny Beth Martin is the co-founder of Tea Party Patriots.

[00:00:34] She is an author, a filmmaker, and one of Time Magazine's most influential people in the world.

[00:00:40] But the title she is most proud of is Mom to Her Boy-Girl Twins.

[00:00:45] She has been at the forefront, fighting to protect America's core principles for more than a decade.

[00:00:51] Welcome to The Jenny Beth Show.

[00:00:54] Today, I'm joined by Marci McCarthy, an influential leader within the Georgia Republican Party.

[00:01:00] Marci shares her inspiring journey for revitalizing conservative influence in one of the most Democrat counties in Georgia, DeKalb County,

[00:01:08] overcoming significant challenges, and how her team's unique approach has doubled Republican voter turnout in a traditionally blue county.

[00:01:17] More of a challenge than instead. That's actually our motto is hashtag vote DeKalb red.

[00:02:39] So, we for many decades have gone, you know, underrepresented or not represented at all.

[00:02:47] Quite frankly, right now in the Georgia Gold Dome, our General Assembly, we have no state senators and no state representatives.

[00:02:56] Equally, in the U.S. House of Congress, we do not have any Republican representation in the 4th, 5th, and 13th districts, which represent DeKalb County.

[00:03:09] And certainly, both our U.S. senators now are also Democrats, even though we are predominantly a Republican, you know, state here in Georgia.

[00:03:19] I was elected for the first time in 2021.

[00:03:33] That is correct by acclamation.

[00:03:37] In 2023?

[00:03:38] Yes.

[00:03:39] In 2023, 2021, in 2023, you get to the people who are here for appreciation.

[00:03:47] What?

[00:03:47] So, most noteworthy, we recruited down-ballot candidates as well as school board candidates,

[00:03:52] even though our school board candidates were nonpartisan, but there was, you know, allegiances to party representation

[00:03:59] sort of in the backfolds of everything like that.

[00:04:03] We put our school board candidates at the top of our ticket and then our state and Senate representatives a little bit down the ballot.

[00:04:12] Equally, what we did was inspired Republicans to come out and vote in the primary.

[00:04:18] We took it and doubled the Republican voter turnout in 2022, comparing that to 2018 in that midterm election.

[00:04:27] And then in the general election in 2022, we increased the margins of victory by 11 percent,

[00:04:33] and all of our constitutional officers were elected or reelected in the Republican Party.

[00:04:41] And many of its statewide offices, which attributed back to DeKalb,

[00:04:46] because we added for Governor Kemp's reelection over 25,000 votes to his column, taking away Stacey Abrams' vote.

[00:05:04] That is absolutely correct.

[00:05:06] And here we are in 2024, Jenny Beth, and we have recruited three congressional candidates as well as 11 down-ballot candidates.

[00:05:14] That is the General Assembly, State House, and State Senate.

[00:05:17] And what we're already seeing is voting to have red.

[00:05:21] So for the first time in decades, 79 percent of our active voters will come to the down-ballot right now as we're voting early.

[00:05:31] And we'll have a Republican and a Democrat for State House and State Senate.

[00:05:37] And we're inspiring people to come out.

[00:05:39] And what's actually happening is people are giving us a chance.

[00:05:43] They're not necessarily voting for the party, but they're voting for the people because they have gotten nothing from the status quo from the Democrats.

[00:05:51] They have taken their votes for granted.

[00:05:53] And here we are in a situation where Donald Trump is lifting the ticket from the bottom up.

[00:05:59] But we're hopeful that we're going to bring a lot of new voters out for Donald Trump as well as flip a couple seats here into Cabin County, Georgia.

[00:06:07] The next step is the right-hand case to the candidate to have a message for residents who put the voters out of what they do.

[00:06:33] It's a critical program for this decision of how the Democratic area is.

[00:06:38] It's a strategy that the United States Senator Ron Johnson talked about the state of what comes.

[00:06:49] It's a strategy that the more people who are on the ballot better off of the ticket list.

[00:06:56] And the concept is easy now that they have a Republican challenger to give them an answer to me.

[00:07:14] Even though you're talking about the two in the bill and those, there's going to be no Republican and a Democratic ticket.

[00:07:22] And that makes weird some people listening to you because they're counting your test to win the Republican challenger performance.

[00:07:29] Pretty much all the races didn't have a Republican challenger until I was elected chairman.

[00:07:35] So now they do it.

[00:07:36] And that's the Johnson talking.

[00:07:40] That's the Johnson talking about getting people right and people don't choose.

[00:07:49] You can count those who are in the strategy.

[00:07:53] It really is a great strategy for a blue county where you have people getting choices on their ballot.

[00:08:02] Because that's what inspires them to come out is making a choice.

[00:08:06] And we're running a whole digital ad campaign that has gone to the household using streaming media.

[00:08:14] So basically those that have cut the cord like a YouTube TV type of platform as well as digital texting.

[00:08:21] So our message is you have the first time in decades to change the destiny of DeKalb County and your country by coming out and voting.

[00:08:32] And that's a true statement.

[00:08:33] That's a true statement.

[00:08:35] Now, in 2022, you don't have to be the Republican right to be the qualified people for the people who step up.

[00:08:44] That's a great job.

[00:08:45] Is that correct?

[00:08:46] That is the best practice, actually, overall.

[00:08:48] So you have to take away the initial financial barrier for your candidates.

[00:08:53] And we did that both in 2022 as well as in 2024.

[00:08:59] And inspired, actually, Fulton County and some other counties out there.

[00:09:03] So the condition of participation in that mode is you cannot have a contested primary.

[00:09:09] And you really do have to wait until the end of the qualifying period to make that determination.

[00:09:13] So we signed contracts with all of our candidates saying that we would be making a one-time donation to their campaign on the condition that they ended up not running opposed.

[00:09:26] And that they were requested to appear at our Georgia Capitol to do the qualifying together.

[00:09:33] And we did it on one afternoon, doubling the Republican qualifying platform or number of candidates in one afternoon for the General Assembly by doing that together.

[00:09:45] We had the red carpet literally rolled out.

[00:09:48] We had the media there.

[00:09:49] And we were all on the Capitol stairs taking tons of great pictures and just family, friends, supporters.

[00:09:58] That was the kickoff of each of their campaigns.

[00:10:01] And then I took them all into the qualifying office together as their chairman.

[00:10:06] And we completed all the qualifying paperwork.

[00:10:10] But it was a real proud moment for the entire DeKalb Republican Party to see 11 candidates that are down ballot and three congressional candidates come together and see an opportunity for representation and change.

[00:10:25] And truly having that moment of changing the destiny of DeKalb County and our country.

[00:10:32] And the local Republican Party or the chief government, you know, the local government, made a lot of money for the qualifying fees.

[00:10:58] So they said qualifying fees really really high because they're reducing it as a fundraiser for the political party.

[00:11:05] So you're not doing that at all.

[00:11:06] You're not going to see where it appears to be.

[00:11:14] Well, for a state race, the qualifying fee does go to the party and the state of Georgia.

[00:11:20] So these were not county races.

[00:11:22] The only time we did county races and did the qualifying fee payment was for our three school board races back in 2022.

[00:11:30] So are you going to see the courts?

[00:11:42] Yes.

[00:11:43] So immediately following their qualifying period, we set up a boot camp.

[00:11:46] So Sunday afternoon, because we're running on a pose in our primaries, right?

[00:11:50] And actually in this go around, because of the redistricting that the Democrats self-imposed on themselves in Georgia and failed miserably over, they ended up going and having to primary each other.

[00:12:03] So they had, for the first time, contested primaries with long-established candidates.

[00:12:09] So you saw a lot of retirements and a lot of new people jumping into the fold.

[00:12:12] So they had a very busy primary season.

[00:12:15] And we took that time to get their names out there, but get them trained from media training to how to build their websites, the branding of the campaign logos, the signage, just getting them ready for primetime.

[00:12:32] And then teaching them all the different opportunities of how to get out the vote.

[00:12:36] So we helped become that campaign infrastructure out of the get-go to get them out of the nest.

[00:12:42] But the expectation was we're not running your campaign.

[00:12:45] So it was very, very clear about that.

[00:12:48] But we're going to provide you with the guardrails and opportunity to set you on your course for success.

[00:12:59] They are so excited and very optimistic.

[00:13:03] So what we've seen is actually the Democrats don't know how to campaign because they've never had to spend money in a place that was a safe place for them.

[00:13:13] They never had opposition.

[00:13:14] So they're kind of scrambling.

[00:13:16] It's actually really funny.

[00:13:17] And I just live rent-free in their heads.

[00:13:21] So they completely go crazy every time that they're challenged.

[00:13:24] I'm seeing driving all over DeKalb County.

[00:13:28] Now, there's definitely some Walt Harris signs here and there.

[00:13:33] But I don't see any of the down-ballot candidate signs anywhere.

[00:13:36] Now, our sign strategy is even very strategic.

[00:13:39] So what we did was built a web form on the deKalbgop.org website that lists all of our candidates as well as President Trump.

[00:13:49] And you can request your signs from President Trump all the way down.

[00:13:53] And what we do do is we do a lookup of that address.

[00:13:58] And even if they're just asking for a Trump sign for the yard, our candidate that aligns with that location, that household, is delivering the sign, making voter contact.

[00:14:11] So we're getting down-ballot signs concurrently in the yards.

[00:14:17] So, you know, a state senate candidate, for example, might be delivering the sign for President Trump.

[00:14:24] And he's out there delivering her sign and then whatever corresponding house district sign, you know, or vice versa.

[00:14:32] So they all actually have sign inventories in their, you know, their garages and wherever they're storing their signage.

[00:14:38] So they all have a stash of President Trump signs, which we got from the campaign.

[00:14:42] And then they have their signs.

[00:14:44] And then they've cross-pollinated with each other's sign where there's crossover in the districts because, like, a state senate is a larger district.

[00:14:50] And they might have three or, you know, crossover house districts.

[00:14:54] So they're delivering.

[00:14:55] And then the congressional districts are also there.

[00:14:58] So they'll have the corresponding congressional district.

[00:15:02] Consequently, we have put out thousands and thousands of signs.

[00:15:07] So when you drive around DeKalb County, it looks like a red county because there's Trump signs and Amelia signs and Jeff Newland signs and Kendra signs.

[00:15:17] It's kind of wild.

[00:15:18] And so I have friends and family, like, calling.

[00:15:21] And they're like, we just, we don't know what's going on in DeKalb County.

[00:15:26] You know, we're seeing all these Republican signs everywhere.

[00:15:29] And there's no signs of, you know, the down-ballot candidates.

[00:15:33] And interestingly, because of this redistricting process, which, again, failed miserably on the Democrats' path, they redistricted themselves into new districts.

[00:15:43] So they don't even, they have an I next to their name, but they're really not an I.

[00:15:47] And there's no connectivity with their constituents.

[00:15:51] And these constituents still think that they have a different, you know, representative who may have been retired, primaried out, or something like that.

[00:16:00] And so for all intents and purposes, what we're hearing from all the canvassing that we've been doing since, you know, the summer, beginning of summer until President Day, is we've never had a politician come to our house before.

[00:16:12] So thank you.

[00:16:13] So they're putting the signs in the yards.

[00:16:15] And so they're not really thinking about the party, you know, overall.

[00:16:19] You have, like, Dr. Barry Zisholtz, who is a Orthodox Jew, retired doctor, who had practiced his offices in the heart of DeKalb County for many years overall.

[00:16:35] And so it has been a predominantly Jewish district.

[00:16:39] And his opponent voted against the anti-Semitism bill as well as the resolution, you know, denouncing Hamas.

[00:16:48] So he's using that to his favor and going into every synagogue and church and talking about, you know, that overall and that he supports Israel.

[00:16:57] He's an Orthodox Jew.

[00:16:59] And he's a medical, you know, a respected doctor who was already assisting these people.

[00:17:06] So when he gets the question, like, what have you done for us?

[00:17:08] He's like, I've already been there with you, you know, in your worst moments with you and your family.

[00:17:14] And so there's empathy.

[00:17:16] There's already pre-existing relationships that didn't exist necessarily in the context of the political spectrum.

[00:17:22] But what's just really amazing is watching my candidates truly, truly passionate and connecting with their communities and the resonation of the people.

[00:17:35] Because they feel like there's somebody that's going to look out for them that's not taking their vote for granted, that wants to earn the opportunity to represent them in the General Assembly.

[00:17:52] We have people believe in us, invest in us.

[00:18:01] So one of the other tips that I would offer is to set up an investor's program, a reoccurring type of donor's program.

[00:18:08] So we did that really at the get-go.

[00:18:10] So we have reoccurring revenue coming in every single month.

[00:18:13] And we built a budget for all these things.

[00:18:16] So we weren't trying to fundraise at the 11th hour in a presidential cycle or a major midterm cycle.

[00:18:22] So the money was there.

[00:18:23] And what I understand is ours is far exceeded actually what the Democrats had in their stockpile because they never – they spent it on, you know, the gubernatorial candidate or the presidential candidate.

[00:18:36] And they didn't have an infrastructure.

[00:18:39] So they didn't really need to fundraise like the way we did.

[00:18:43] And we just – I don't want to say saved it for a rainy day, but we planned for this.

[00:18:48] So we made our investment and we're just simply executing on an incredible strategic plan with the money that has already been raised and then just allocated and put in the best type of methods.

[00:19:03] And we're leveraging a digital platform out there that didn't even exist two years ago.

[00:19:09] We used Facebook a lot a couple years ago, but this is 100 times better.

[00:19:14] So we created – we partnered with a company called Landmark Communications, and they are a specialty of political consulting and advertising and data and things like that.

[00:19:34] And I sat down with Mark Roundtree, who's the CEO of Landmark Communications, and I said, we have 11 down-ballot candidates.

[00:19:43] We've got to come up with something.

[00:19:46] This is my budget.

[00:19:47] So we initially started with around $21,000 coming to the table.

[00:19:52] And I said, we've got to be equitable and giving opportunity to our candidates that are running in 11 different races.

[00:20:01] So I don't want to give directly to the campaign because that's going to spread that money pretty quickly downwards, and it's not going to be as effective.

[00:20:08] But what can we do?

[00:20:09] And then the cost of door knocking has gone through the roof.

[00:20:13] It's been like – went up like three times what it was in 2022.

[00:20:17] And with that many candidates, it really can't be even cost effective of doing door knocking.

[00:20:23] So they're going to have to do their own canvassing with their own volunteers.

[00:20:26] And being a presidential year, we've been able to piggyback off of, like, the Trump campaign and do a lot of stuff together organically, sometimes with them, sometimes, you know, again,

[00:20:36] that cross-pollination of a state Senate candidate with a state House candidate.

[00:20:42] But we sat down and looked at the coverage.

[00:20:45] And as I mentioned earlier, we have 79 percent coverage, which makes us the second largest coverage in the metro area, meaning we have pretty much coverage of all our state House and state Senate races.

[00:21:00] Gwinnett actually is ahead of us with one state Senate race that they didn't get a Republican candidate for.

[00:21:06] But we did better than Fulton.

[00:21:08] We did better than Cobb.

[00:21:09] So how can you allocate that money and make it most effective?

[00:21:13] So we built a message – a plan around first-hitting households that set a certain criteria.

[00:21:22] And that household had to be in that 79 percent zone overall.

[00:21:26] So we were not going to waste money on a household that didn't have a Republican candidate to go vote for.

[00:21:32] So that precision marketing really went into play.

[00:21:36] And then so they pulled the data set.

[00:21:38] And what they do – we pay for the ads in terms of being delivered only.

[00:21:44] So it's $25 per 1,000 ads delivered.

[00:21:48] So I don't pay for an ad unless it's delivered and watched.

[00:21:51] And these ads right now on that platform really are near impossible to skip over.

[00:21:57] And they're only 30 seconds anyway.

[00:21:59] And our ad is very compelling.

[00:22:00] So we focused on three areas.

[00:22:03] One is the economy, but lowering the cost of living by, you know, working on taxes and things like that.

[00:22:11] The second thing is school choice and having that because the DeKalb schools in general are some of the worst in the state.

[00:22:20] And they continue to deteriorate and decline.

[00:22:22] So school choice is a real essential for those that reside in DeKalb County.

[00:22:27] And the third is safer communities.

[00:22:29] And most people have – you know, you turn on our local news almost every single night and they'll just say DeKalb County is, you know, a sign of this crime or shooting, this robbery and some horrific kind of crime.

[00:22:42] DeKalb County is the fourth largest county in the state of Georgia.

[00:22:45] And it's probably bigger than, you know, some states and other cities.

[00:22:50] So DeKalb County is a very diverse county.

[00:22:53] And so you really – when you say DeKalb County, it's very misleading when you talk about the dangers of DeKalb County.

[00:23:00] But crime goes everywhere.

[00:23:02] You know, we're seeing an uptick and everything like that no matter what our zip code within DeKalb County is.

[00:23:08] And this is resonating with people overall.

[00:23:11] So we came up with a message that showed the contrast between Democrats and what Republicans would do for them.

[00:23:18] And if your viewers want to watch it, visit DeKalb, G-O-P, dot com.

[00:23:22] The ad is there.

[00:23:23] And that's D-E-K-A-L-B, G-O-P, dot com.

[00:23:28] And the ad is awesome.

[00:23:30] And we've delivered it to – we're approaching about a million ads delivered now and then about 40,000 ads delivered to people's cell phones.

[00:23:41] Since early voting has started and we'll go all the way through Election Day.

[00:23:44] And what the other cool part about this is, they're looking at the voter rolls.

[00:23:49] And if you've already voted, they're taking the household out of the queue.

[00:23:53] So I'm not wasting money.

[00:23:54] I'm not wasting money.

[00:23:55] So that's something that I expect to assist to people.

[00:23:59] Go vote.

[00:24:00] Go ahead and vote because this is a critical part.

[00:24:17] By doing that, we can add to the list that hasn't come out there and even expand the reach farther.

[00:24:24] So if you've already voted – and we didn't focus on hard, hard Republicans that vote in every single election.

[00:24:30] It was totally a waste of money.

[00:24:32] We had a small number set aside for our members and our candidates so that they could see the ad and see their return on investment overall, which was a good thing to do.

[00:24:41] But in general, they didn't see the ads.

[00:24:44] They just been hearing about it.

[00:24:46] So the traffic to the DeKalbGOP.com website.

[00:24:49] We had new people show up at our breakfast as a result of that that didn't even realize there was a Republican Party in DeKalb County.

[00:24:57] So we've put ballot questions in the primaries.

[00:25:01] Have you heard of the DeKalb Republican Party?

[00:25:03] Have you visited DeKalb?

[00:25:05] As a ballot question, it's a great tip.

[00:25:07] But have you visited DeKalbGOP.org, which is our organization website?

[00:25:12] So we put that actually on the ballot.

[00:25:16] It's a marketing.

[00:25:17] And so my cousin who lives in DeKalb County who kind of leans more Democrat but voted in 2022 on a Republican primary ballot because he didn't like the options that were in front of him.

[00:25:31] And so we were at a family gathering and he asked me about those ballot questions.

[00:25:37] He goes, did you have anything to do with that?

[00:25:39] And I said, yeah, we did.

[00:25:41] We put those on there.

[00:25:41] And I said, it's a free marketing questionnaire.

[00:25:43] And it's an advertisement to everyone that pulls a Republican ballot.

[00:25:48] So, you know, little things like that may go tons of miles, you know, overall.

[00:25:54] But, you know, everything from that sign strategy that just putting a web form on our website and then making sure our candidates had the stocks of signs and then just knew about the delivery.

[00:26:04] And we had a whole lookup system using, you know, the voter database of knowing that where they are and where they should be going.

[00:26:13] So it's little things like that can go that big differences.

[00:26:17] Now, certainly having a marketing budget like we did for our advertising campaign is paying dividends.

[00:26:23] We're very, very hopeful that we're going to put some extra votes in President Trump's bucket and be a part of him coming back to the White House from Georgia.

[00:26:36] So we're very hopeful for that.

[00:26:37] I'm just going to say, what are the things that you used to do for the last 100%?

[00:26:41] You know, the sports, if you have a living group or whatever the group wants to do, should you guys be able to start manually?

[00:26:58] Because that is the way to start building the sports has to do?

[00:27:01] We did it from the very get-go.

[00:27:03] And quite frankly, most people have stayed on and added to our list.

[00:27:08] There are some perks and benefits.

[00:27:10] You get special seating at our breakfasts, some recognition on our website and other special events.

[00:27:16] You know, an accolades like that.

[00:27:18] It doesn't cost you anything to do that.

[00:27:20] But you don't take them for granted.

[00:27:22] You show your appreciation as they should be recognized.

[00:27:27] But you're not asking for money in a time of need.

[00:27:30] It's already built into their household budget.

[00:27:32] And they're so honored because right now they're seeing the results of their investment.

[00:27:36] They're seeing ads.

[00:27:37] They're seeing candidates that are campaigning.

[00:27:40] They were all at the Capitol with us.

[00:27:43] We were together.

[00:27:44] There was like – it was a huge crowd.

[00:27:47] So we told the Georgia Republican Party that we were coming.

[00:27:52] Actually, they called us.

[00:27:53] They're like, what are you coming to?

[00:27:55] We just cleared this late for you guys because we'll take up the whole, you know, oxygen in the room in the afternoon.

[00:28:00] And what was awesome when we did it, the Democrats were sitting there in their qualifying office completely empty.

[00:28:08] They were just looking at what's going on there.

[00:28:11] And we even had a couple candidates that defected from the DeKalb Democrats and joined us as Republicans on the ballot.

[00:28:19] So that even kind of caused another kind of bit of a tizzy.

[00:28:56] We literally had every local media station down there and the AJC down there.

[00:29:03] And then actually some national press.

[00:29:05] So they were following around with cameras.

[00:29:08] Like it was like a press conference on the stairs watching all of us together.

[00:29:13] It was amazing.

[00:29:14] This is important to me too.

[00:29:16] What do you see the local media?

[00:29:26] 100%.

[00:29:26] We had every local station there and the AJC there.

[00:29:31] And then some of the national, like NBC sent a national reporter as well.

[00:29:38] That's a great way to put the candidates together.

[00:29:41] To get calls for a candidate.

[00:29:43] It's a great way for their party to get.

[00:29:46] Like I just said, if you were doing it, it's a great way to think about when you're doing this.

[00:30:13] I mean, it's all marketing.

[00:30:19] So my background is marketing and events.

[00:30:22] So I'm taking a lot of what I've learned in my business and professional career and just applying it to the political spectrum.

[00:30:29] And it's kind of funny to watch it just simply like spawn off and work.

[00:30:35] So it's really amazing.

[00:30:37] And if you run it just like you're truly like a marketing and event, it works.

[00:30:45] You know, people are very receptive to it.

[00:30:47] And they, with strong messaging, good, you know, branding, good graphics.

[00:30:53] And just knowing what you're supposed to do, even though there are moments, I will be honest.

[00:30:58] But we're trying to figure some of this stuff out.

[00:31:01] I mean, there was no playbook for us.

[00:31:03] When we did this for the first time in 2022, we're all kind of looking at each other like, what do we do?

[00:31:11] What's a push card?

[00:31:12] You know, what, do I need a push card versus a door hanger or a postcard?

[00:31:17] I mean, little things like that.

[00:31:19] Where do you buy, where do you get signs printed?

[00:31:21] And then, oh, you need to buy the sticks.

[00:31:23] I mean, like it was kind of revelations like that.

[00:31:27] And now, fast forward, we've templated a lot of this out.

[00:31:31] So all of our candidates that needed a website were given one and created one by Rick Shepard, who was on our team.

[00:31:39] And we had a template for them.

[00:31:42] You know, they chose the color scheme and we worked with them with the design and the logo and branding and the messaging.

[00:31:50] But there was still core messaging that aligned with the DeKalb Republican Party and the state party.

[00:31:56] But they put their own spin to it, like I'm a grandma or, you know, a single mom or, you know, a Jewish retired doctor.

[00:32:05] But it came their own persona.

[00:32:08] And so that's what's really beautiful about it.

[00:32:11] But it is templatable and replicatable.

[00:32:13] And so when we do it again in 2026, oh, my God, I'm not even – we're just 12 days away from our election.

[00:32:21] So I can't even think about 2026.

[00:32:26] But I'm hoping we're going to be doing some reelections in that cycle and adding to our platform and our other races.

[00:32:36] Because we haven't tapped some of the commissioners and some of the county type of races.

[00:32:44] We've stayed away from those overall.

[00:32:45] But, you know, municipals are next year and then going in, you know, school boards and things like that.

[00:32:53] But we've got to get a few successes.

[00:32:55] We've got to flip a couple seats.

[00:32:56] But we've proven voter turnout can be done from the bottom up by doing a job ballot strategy, pushing up to the top of the ballot.

[00:33:04] But you've had success.

[00:33:06] Do you have measurable success?

[00:33:10] So we have had measurable success.

[00:33:12] But, you know, certainly Governor Kemp was reelected with 25,000 new votes, you know, two that he did not have in 2018, which took away from Stacey Abrams because that was a total rematch.

[00:33:26] And DeKalb County was supposed to be her home base.

[00:33:29] We had in 2022 Democrats actually having to create websites, newsletters.

[00:33:36] They were probably sparmling around trying to figure out where to get campaign signs just like we were.

[00:33:43] And they had no money.

[00:33:45] It was funny watching them trying to set up fundraisers because they had never really done that for themselves before.

[00:33:51] But fast forward to present day, we're a lot more confident.

[00:33:54] And it's just actually really fun to watch, you know, how we did the voter, doubling the voter turnout, increasing the margins of victory.

[00:34:03] And then just actually getting just a little while ago before we went on air, the county next to us, Fulton County,

[00:34:11] I tweeted out an endorsement type of fun tweet for Courtney Kramer, who's running for DA against Fannie Willis.

[00:34:22] And Fannie Willis used it in a fundraise, the tweet actually in a fundraiser attempt today that the DeKalb Republican chair is tweeting out for Courtney Kramer with,

[00:34:32] I had a Trump hat on and a fire Fannie shirt on.

[00:34:35] And it was beautiful.

[00:34:37] And I was like, thank you for advertising for Courtney.

[00:34:40] Right.

[00:34:40] And I'm going to put out a new tweet that I love living rent-free in Fannie's head.

[00:34:47] You also were the second lowest lowest lowest lowest lowest lowest county in the state of Georgia.

[00:34:57] Yes, we used to be the second.

[00:34:58] When I took office in 2021, percentage-wise, we were the second lowest county in the state of Georgia.

[00:35:05] Because of the success points of doubling the Republican voter turnout and just, you know, increasing the margins of victory,

[00:35:13] seeing more Republicans coming out and voting, we are now the third lowest county in the state of Georgia.

[00:35:17] And we did that in just under four years.

[00:35:21] Yeah, and it's still a Democrat.

[00:35:27] Yeah, I mean, we can't get ourselves.

[00:35:29] Yeah.

[00:35:29] We're not actually going to understand all four words.

[00:35:34] What you're offering people is just hope.

[00:35:37] And we're offering, you're reminding the people who are listening to this.

[00:35:40] We're watching the rich history to do, whether you live in a political or a red area.

[00:35:45] If you want to get involved, then you can definitely do the Democratic Trump.

[00:35:51] Well, think about simple messaging, right?

[00:35:53] You have MAGA.

[00:35:54] Make America Great Again.

[00:35:56] We have Vote to Cab Red.

[00:35:58] And we've used it for the last several years.

[00:36:00] People hashtag it and put it all in their, you know, social media posts.

[00:36:04] And people talk about that overall.

[00:36:08] So they will say, vote to Cab Red.

[00:36:10] So we have made a very simple message in the way that what that means is giving the Republicans an opportunity to earn your vote.

[00:36:19] Not take your vote for granted.

[00:36:21] But before we do, you can follow me at Marcy McCarthyUS at M-A-R-C-I.

[00:36:33] The Jenny Beth Show is hosted by Jenny Beth Martin, produced by Kevin Mooneyham, and directed by Luke Livingston.

[00:37:08] The Jenny Beth Show is a production of Tea Party Patriots Action.

[00:37:13] For more information, visit teapartypatriots.org.

[00:37:19] If you liked this episode, let me know by hitting the like button or leaving a comment or a five-star review.

[00:37:25] And if you want to be the first to know every time we drop a new episode, be sure to subscribe and turn on notifications for whichever platform you're listening on.

[00:37:34] If you do these simple things, it will help the podcast grow, and I'd really appreciate it.

[00:37:40] Thank you so much.