Congressional Races

Main Street is not merely a small firm with a proven record of winning the most hotly contested races; we have the best record among media firms in the Democratic Party helping our clients win contested open seat races for Congress. Overall, Main Street had the single best won-loss record of any Democratic media firm in the country in 2010. Our clients won five out of six “toss-up” races and 12 out of 14 overall. In addition to Joe’s campaign, we handled the media for two of the three targeted southern Blue Dogs who survived on Election Day – Reps. Mike McIntyre (N.C.) and Sanford Bishop (Ga.). And we helped Rep. Raul Grijalva (Tucson) come from behind to win a toss-up race in Arizona. Other winners included U.S. Reps. Marcy Kaptur (Ohio), John Yarmuth (Louisville), Dutch Ruppersberger (Baltimore), John Olver (Mass.), Corrine Brown (Fla.) and Collin Peterson (Minn.), who won in a heavily Republican district (R+6). No Democratic media firm had a better record on Election Day. Our clients have also won ten out of thirteen general election open seat races for Congress since 1995. The common denominator in each of these races being a smartly conceived, unconventional and well executed strategy and creative, attention-grabbing TV and radio ads.

Statewide Races

At the statewide level, we have been equally successful. At the top of the ticket, in 2002, we helped then-Congressman John Baldacci become Governor of Maine. What made Gov. Baldacci’s win especially satisfying was that each of the six New England states (the most Democratic region in the country) held elections that year, and every other state elected a Republican governor. In 2006, we not only helped re-elect Governor Baldacci, we held his Republican opponent to just 30% of the vote!

At the down-ballot level, our clients have won six out of seven down-ballot statewide races. Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Comptroller, Labor Commissioner, even the State Supreme Court… we have helped our clients win statewide for each of these important offices. We helped elect the Attorneys General of both West Virginia and Ohio in 2006; the Ohio win was especially satisfying, as State Senator Marc Dann came from 36 points behind to defeat former Attorney General Betty Montgomery despite the fact that Montgomery had garnered more votes than anyone on the GOP ticket in each of the last two statewide elections.

Mayoral Races

We have a proven record of success helping clients win big-city mayoral races. In 2001, we handled two mayoral campaigns, Matt Driscoll in Syracuse and Jane Campbell in Cleveland – and both won! Driscoll became the first Democrat elected in Syracuse in twelve years, and Campbell the first woman ever to be elected Mayor of Cleveland. We also handled the media for the first African-American ever elected Mayor in St. Louis, Freeman Bosley, Jr. And in 2010, we helped businessman Greg Fischer, who had never before held public office, come from behind to become Mayor of the consolidated government of Louisville/Jefferson County, despite his having been outspent by more than a million dollars in the primary and again in the general.

African-American and Hispanic Candidates

We have had particular success helping elect minorities to Congress. Recent redistrictings have created many new seats with a plurality of minority voters, and we have helped our clients win repeatedly in these racially diverse districts. In 1998, we helped Michael Thurmond become the first African-American to be elected statewide in Georgia, then in 2002 and 2006 we helped him win re-election at the same time Democrats were losing the U.S. Senate seat and the governorship at the top of the ticket.

All told, David Heller has helped elect and re-elect more African-Americans to Congress than any media consultant in the country, including U.S. Reps. Frank Ballance (D-N.C.), Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.), Corrine Brown (D-Fla.), John Conyers (D-Mich.), Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-Ill.), John Lewis (D-Ga.), David Scott (D-Ga.), Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Albert Wynn (D-Md.). Heller also helped elect Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) in a majority-Hispanic district, in 2002, and helped him through a very difficult re-election in 2010. Additionally, Heller handles the media for the only two whites in Congress to represent majority-minority districts: Reps. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) and Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.).

The Bottom Line

The reason we win so often, especially when our competitors clients are losing open seat races with higher Democratic performance numbers, is simple: our strategies. We know that no two races are ever the same, so we never use a cookie-cutter mold with our candidates. Democrats today must run on a myriad of ideas and issues. With new ideas come new strategies to convey these ideas. We break the mold to maximize the ideas, vision, personality and record of our candidates, and provide each client with his or her own strategy and uniquely tailored creative media package. We have amassed the best won-loss record among media firms in the Democratic Party. And we have done it the old-fashioned way: by strictly limiting the number of clients we take on and getting deeply involved in our races.