Chris Jones Coalition
State-Legislative Strategy · Est. 2011
Vol. XIII · Columbus, OH
What follows is not a marketing reel. It is the anonymized district record of the bipartisan operation that rewrote how state legislators win — and keeps winning for the 347 lawmakers who trust us. Read it the way a chief of staff would: who retained, who flipped, who drafted what, who got outworked, and what the next cycle looks like for an incumbent in your chamber.
Every engagement listed below meets three conditions before it enters the coalition's public record. First, the client sat in a state legislature on Election Day and signed a coalition engagement letter at least 120 days before that day's primary or general. Second, the race was contested — an uncontested retention does not count toward the 94% retention figure, because an unopposed race is not a defense. Third, the post-cycle outcome was independently confirmed against the National Institute on Money in Politics' state-legislative scorecard, which audits filings across all 50 states.
The +8.4 average vote-share lift is computed against a non-client peer set drawn from the same district, same chamber, same cycle, same partisan registration band — not against a statewide average and not against the prior cycle alone. The figure is a cohort average across every coalition incumbent defended between 2014 and 2022; it is not a best-case cherry-pick.
All client names are withheld. Districts are described by state, chamber, partisan index band, and engagement type. Where a case references a sitting legislator's identity publicly (e.g. in third-party press coverage of a chamber leadership race), that case is omitted from this log to preserve the coalition's standing non-disclosure posture. Cases are ordered by cycle and engagement type, not by outcome magnitude.
Audited annually by the Marist methodology team. Filed under coalition standing order CJC-MO-2024-03.
Filter this log the way you would a committee docket — by chamber, by threat, by cycle. Each row below names the engagement type, the partisan index band of the district, the cycle, and the outcome. Drill into any two in the section that follows.
Coalition built a 14,000-contact universe from a fragmented incumbent file, ran a six-week mail and digital contrast campaign against a self-funded surgeon, and held the seat by 4.1 points against a challenger who outraised the incumbent 2.1-to-1.
A new district map redrew the seat's coalition universe by 38%. Coalition rebuilt the voter's file from scratch using modeled precinct data, paired the incumbent with a Republican former mayor for a joint rural-urban stop, and moved vote share +9.2 points above the 2018 baseline.
Coalition designed the only Independent retention framework in the firm portfolio: no partisan ballot line, signature-gated access, persuasion-only messaging. The member held 31% against a 37/32 split between the major-party challengers — a working Independent outcome in a race both parties targeted.
Coalition built the candidate's first voter file, field plan, and policy brand from a blank slate in January of the cycle year. The freshman won the Democratic primary by 19 points and the general by 11 points, and pre-filed 11 bills in the first 90 days of session.
Coalition identified the suburban precincts shifting fastest under the new commission map, designed a parent-and-property-tax contrast message, and won a seat that had been held by the same Republican for three terms. The member is now in their second term.
Coalition designed the messaging tie between the freshman senator's first-term brand and a same-cycle ballot measure on voting procedures. The freshman won by 14 points; the ballot measure passed with 60%. Coalition separately advised the ballot committee on turnout modeling.
Coalition built a whip-count spreadsheet across 66 members, ran weekly member comms for the candidate, and managed floor coordination on the organizational day. The candidate won the speakership by three votes on the floor. The coalition does not claim credit for the chamber's majority outcome; we claim credit for the operational readiness of our client.
Coalition executed a permanent-field model: monthly door count, quarterly donor maintenance, and an always-on digital contrast series keyed to the incumbent's committee assignments. Vote share moved from 58.3% to 67.1% against a late-filed challenger who had 11 weeks to organize.
Four cases above are taken through in narrative form below. The remaining engagements in the 347-legislator portfolio are summarized in the coalition's quarterly client memo, available on request to sitting legislators and credentialed PAC and ballot-committee staff.
DISTRICT FILE · CASE 01 · PHOTO BY COALITION FIELD
The district: a suburban Texas House seat at R+4 on the Cook index, held by a two-term Republican incumbent with a reliable but aging file. The challenger: a self-funded surgeon who announced in March of the cycle year with a stated $1.4M of personal capacity and a credible outsider brand. The challenger filed on day one and booked broadcast within 72 hours.
The coalition engaged in mid-March with a 14-week window to the May primary. The first ten days were diagnostic — we ran the incumbent's file against the new universe, modeled the challenger against the prior cycle's primary pattern, and identified a 22,000-name persuasion universe concentrated in 11 precincts where the incumbent's 2018 margin had been thinnest.
The plan was a contrast campaign built on three pillars: a six-week direct-mail series keyed to the incumbent's committee work on water infrastructure and property tax, a digital contrast program that named the challenger's prior organization by name, and a 14-week earned-media effort that put the incumbent in front of three regional editorial boards. The mail was the spine; the digital program ran continuous A/B contrast copy keyed to the same three precincts.
The race was decided on a 6-point margin on Election Day, with the incumbent holding the seat by 4.1 points in a race the challenger outraised 2.1-to-1. The coalition's contribution to that outcome: the persuasion universe was correctly identified in week one, the contrast was sustained through the final 14 days, and the earned-media calendar held against a news cycle that was unfavorable to the incumbent in week eight.
DISTRICT FILE · CASE 04 · PHOTO BY COALITION FIELD
The district: a North Carolina House seat at D+6 on the Cook index, open due to term limits. The candidate: a former school-board chair with a credible local brand but no statewide voter file, no donor list, and no campaign infrastructure. The coalition engaged in January of the cycle year and built the file from a blank slate.
The first 90 days were the file. The coalition modeled the open-seat universe from the prior two cycles' primary and general patterns, merged it with the local school-board turnout universe the candidate already had, and produced the campaign's first working voter file by week 11. The first fundraising ask list — built off modeled giving capacity and prior cycle donors to adjacent seats — closed the candidate's first $180,000 quarter by week 14.
The plan from April forward was a four-pillar permanent-field operation: door count in 18 priority precincts from May through primary day, a 12-week broadcast and digital contrast program against the most-funded primary opponent, a county-level surrogate coalition built around the school-board record, and a general-election pivot plan that was drafted in June and executed in the eight weeks after the primary.
The candidate won the Democratic primary by 19 points and the general by 11 points, finishing ahead of both prior cycle winners in the redrawn district. The freshman pre-filed 11 bills in the first 90 days of the legislative session, all of them tied to the school-board record that anchored the original brand. Three of those bills had coalition-drafted language at introduction.
Forecasting · The ChamberCast model has called 4,600+ state-house races since 2016 at 91.2% accuracy, audited annually by the Marist methodology team.
A 30-minute strategic diagnostic with a Chris Jones Coalition principal — no slideware, no sales deck. We will look at your district's prior cycle, your chamber's majority math, your committee calendar, and your own timing. You leave the call with a one-page memo you can hand to your chief of staff the same afternoon. If we are not the right firm for your race, we will tell you that on the call.
Filing line: CJC-CTA-2024-04 · Standing order CJC-MO-2024-03 · Chris Jones Coalition LLC, 88 East Broad Street, Suite 1240, Columbus, OH 43215 · [email protected] · +1 (614) 555-0381