Democratic traditionalists did not trust our methods or our math. They feared we would lose a winnable race by bucking the regular rules. Other pushback included anxious advice when we rejected targeting recommendations from experts to trim low-turnout-scoring Democrats from our universes; repeated befuddled questioning about why we weren’t saving every dime for TV advertising; general strategy questions from opinion leaders in Atlanta and Washington, D.C., asking, “How do you know talking to voters will work?” and the list goes on.
