LPF Candidates Committee Report, October 2023

[AtLarge2]

LPF Candidates Committee Report, October 2023

Chair: Hector Roos
Vice Chair: Eric Cordova
Secretary: vacant

Last Meeting: Monday, October 9, 2023 at 8:00pm (every 1st and 3rd Monday of the month)
Next Meeting: Monday, October 23, 2023 at 8:00pm
Membership: Eric Cordova, Jeremiah Swoveland, Joshua Krakow, Tim Crosby (Ex-Officio)
Volunteers: Andrew Reyes, Eric Parker (and Scott Jewett, Ralph Groves as a side-project)

Meetings are held through Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85318667163?pwd=bE9XbkV1VDBEVDdmWnVFZnVnWlViZz09

2022-2023 Action Plan: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1coIzJlRQicBCs7naWNZRMGy2-kW8J3xA/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=100421007467880575709&rtpof=true&sd=true

Committee Objectives Summary:
- Grow the committee to at least 10 volunteers; recruit more members to the Candidate Cmte from the areas of Tampa Bay, SWFL, Panhandle and Central Florida.
- Record a Florida-oriented election and electioneering rights presentation with worksheets and publish to VoteLPF.org
- Recruit at least 100 candidates for public office in Florida
- Candidate Pipeline (list development): Take any interest from people to run for office and assign them to 3 paths (one at a time or concurrently): operation first step (join civic boards), run for something (less than 1 year), and parachute (at least 2 years out).

Continuing Actions:

- Thank you letters to candidates who ran in 2022/2023 and attendees to recent candidate training event.

- Coordination with Carla Howell and candidates for continuing follow-up (in addition, we have consulted with Wes Benedict on recruiting candidates; see link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LC9PJXSvyQM52QduqbL4yKtdiiKuq1JkwXlJycvg8Bc/edit?usp=sharing)

- Meeting to discuss results of general election 2024, outlook to 2023 municipal election cycle (not complete), campaign in a box kit / resources

- Vote LPF website

- We continue to develop Vote LPF as a repository of candidate support and recruitment funnel beyond the 2024 election cycles.

- Working on semi-annually or quarterly training events

- Juana de la Cruz, City of Minneola Council is the remaining election this year before 2024 cycle elections

- We are finalizing discussions with county affiliates with regards to municipal elections (March 2023 but generally off year)

- Re-Elect Jim Turney, City of Altamonte Springs, Nov. 7, 2023 won without contest

- Current Candidates:
Juana de la Cruz, City of Minneola Council, Seat 5, Nov. 7, 2023
David Agosta, City of Callaway Commission, Ward 4, April 2024
Nathan Slusher, Brevard County Commission, District 1, Aug. 27, 2024
Ralph Groves, US House District 11, Nov. 5, 2024
Anthony Stebbins, US House District 3, Nov. 5, 2024
Ronald Tracy Robison, Florida House District 14, Nov. 5, 2024
Grover Bentley, Florida House District 33, Nov. 5, 2024
Joshua Krakow, Florida House District 77, Nov. 5, 2024
Laurence Gillis, Florida House District 79, Nov. 5, 2024
Joshua Hlavka, Florida House District 105, Nov. 5, 2024

Prospective candidates:
- Scott Jewett, Florida Governor in 2026
- Terrance Nolan, US House District 10 in 2024 (Orange County)
- Feena Bonoan, US Senate in 2024 (against Rick Scott)
- Josh Fabean, Flagler County (office TBD)
- Anthony Illiano, Polk County (office TBD)
- Ryan Gallagher, Florida House District 35, Nov. 5, 2024
- Mark Balenger, US House District 4 (Duval/St. Johns)
- Eric Montgomery, Osceola County County Commission

- Adam Whitworth has created a test SPOKEO text messaging service for us that we can use for member outreach and even for public polling or electioneering. Text messaging laws have changed so I have to figure this out. This is in testing phase now. Will expand this program for other LPF Committees and county affiliates to utilize. Or alternatively test with Click Send clicksend.com (which communications committee uses) or callhub.io (which I use personally).

- LNC is now providing Votergravity which is a door-to-door canvassing and phonebanking app.

- Suggest tech stack included G-Suite (particularly, gmail and calendar) to organize campaigns, the use of a CMS/CRM which it either a combined website and CRM or a separate options; CiviCRM, Nationbuilder, WebElect (only for non-partisan candidates) and outreach efforts using phonebank, canvassing apps, texting software (see above), and email services such as Mailchimp, Drip, and Constant Contact.