Jon: Lawyers say it seems to be moving forward, powerful tool when it comes to DM.

Ted: This is one to one. No anonymizing. 

Howard: Greta, P2P in Iowa. Share some lessons?

Greta: Texting has become for Democrats a little less effective, so much is going on. Texts in Iowa didn’t move people at that point. Everyone in Iowa knows when it’s caucus day. For Montana special election, it was very effective. We’re going to see what we saw in 2018, ton of texting. Some voters got slammed with texts. We’re going to rethink how to use it smarter.

Howard: How do you run a P2P text messaging campaign?

Jon: The way I used it most was for fundraising. We blast out text to them, SMS, MMS. Four videographers went to where president spoke at rallies. Put video in P2P text message. Link for donations. It is very effective.

Ted: How the sausage is made. House file. Illegal to have computer text message a group of numbers. What we can do, P2P is set up to have one person send a message to another person. Set up apps, volunteers can download the app. Use call centers, hire people to click send, send, send. 

Greta: We had 1,000 volunteers sent 3 million texts in 4 days. For persuasion campaign, you don’t want to have a call center texting people. Volunteers can’t give the nitty gritty. 

Jon: We are able to set up different responses:Who is this? MAGA. Or Stop. 

Ted: compares most to mail, much cheaper than mail. By $1 per piece. 

Jon: Data costs but you have to invest in it. 

Howard: What does P2P do well?

Greta: Persuasion, I would never run again. Try to have neighbors talk to neighbors. People are not really moved from getting a text from a neighbor. Mobilization, GOTV, found voters have already gotten mail, digital ads, extra text won’t push them over the edge. Early vote program, texting works. The key is does the person want to get the text? As more people start using P2P texting, more campaigns will see people who don’t want to get texts, there will be spam filters. 

Howard: Telephone consumer protection act?

Ted: Could totally shut texting down. FCC. Tool only for nonprofits and political institutions.