In this episode, Jenny Beth Martin interviews Marci McCarthy, Chairman of the DeKalb County GOP, about her groundbreaking efforts to strengthen Republican influence in one of Georgia’s most Democratic counties. Marci shares how innovative strategies, including digital outreach, community engagement, and down-ballot candidate recruitment, have doubled GOP voter turnout and increased margins of victory. Learn how the DeKalb County GOP is reshaping the political landscape and inspiring a new wave of conservative leadership. Don’t miss this insightful discussion on building momentum in challenging political environments.
In this episode, Jenny Beth Martin interviews Marci McCarthy, Chairman of the DeKalb County GOP, about her groundbreaking efforts to strengthen Republican influence in one of Georgia’s most Democratic counties. Marci shares how innovative strategies, including digital outreach, community engagement, and down-ballot candidate recruitment, have doubled GOP voter turnout and increased margins of victory. Learn how the DeKalb County GOP is reshaping the political landscape and inspiring a new wave of conservative leadership. Don’t miss this insightful discussion on building momentum in challenging political environments.
Marci McCarthy (00:00):
But what's just really amazing, really passionate and connecting with their communities and the resignation of the people because they feel like there's somebody that's going to look out for them that's not taking their vote for granted, that wants to earn the opportunity
Narrator (00:20):
To represent them. Keeping our republic is on the line and it requires Patriots with great passion, dedication, and eternal vigilance to preserve our freedoms. Jenny Beth Martin is the co-founder of Tea Party Patriots. She's an author of filmmaker and one of time magazine's most influential people in the world. But the title she is most proud of is Mom To Her Boy, girl Twins. She has been at the forefront fighting to protect America's core principles for more than a decade. Welcome to the Jenny Beth Show.
Jenny Beth Martin (00:54):
Today I'm joined by Marcy McCarthy, an influential leader within the Georgia Republican Party. Marcy shares her inspiring journey for revitalizing conservative influence in one of the most Democrat counties in Georgia, DeKalb County, overcoming significant challenges and how her team's unique approach has doubled Republican voter turnout in a traditionally blue county.
Marci McCarthy (01:21):
Thanks, Jenny. Beth, it's great to be with you.
Marci McCarthy (01:58):
No, a challenge. And so we for many decades have gone underrepresented or we're not represented at all. Quite frankly, right now in the Georgia Gold Dome, our general assembly, we have no state senators and no state representatives. Equally in the US House of Congress, we do not have any Republican representation in the fourth, fifth, and 13th districts, which represent DeKalb County. And certainly both our US senators now are also Democrat, even though we are predominantly a Republican state here in
Marci McCarthy (03:17):
Georgia.
Marci McCarthy (03:30):
I was elected for the first time in 2021. That is correct by acclamation. Yes. So most noteworthy, we recruited down ballot candidates as well as school board candidates, even though our school board candidates were nonpartisan. But there was allegiances to party representation sort of in the back folds of everything like that. We put our school board candidates at the top of our ticket and then our state and Senate representatives a little bit down the ballot. Equally, what we did was inspired Republicans to come out and vote in the primary. We took it and doubled the Republican voter turnout in 2022, comparing that to 2018 in that midterm election. And then in the general election in 2022, we increased the margins of victory by 11% and all of our constitutional officers were elected or reelected in the Republican party and many of which statewide, statewide offices, which attributed back to DeKalb because we added for Governor Kemp's reelection over 25,000 votes to his column taking away Stacey Abram vote.
Marci McCarthy (05:05):
That is absolutely correct. And here we are in 2024 Jenny Bass and we have recruited three congressional candidates as well as 11 down ballot candidates. That is the General Assembly State House and state Senate. And what we're already seeing is voting read. So for the first time in decades, 79% of our active voters will come to the down ballot down right now, as we're voting early, we'll have a Republican and a Democrat for State House and state Senate, and we're inspiring people to come out. And what's actually happening is people are giving us a chance. They're not necessarily voting for the party, but they're voting for the people because they have gotten nothing from the status quo from the Democrats. They have taken their votes for granted. And here we are in a situation where Donald Trump is lifting the ticket from the bottom up. But we're hopeful that we're going to bring a lot of voters out for Donald Trump. Pretty much all the races didn't have a Republican challenger until I was elected chairman. It really as a great strategy for a Blue County where you have people getting choices on their ballot because that's what inspires them to come out is making a choice. And we're running a whole digital ad campaign that has gone to the household using streaming media. So basically those that have cut the cord like a YouTube TV type of platform as well as digital texting. So our message is you have the first time in decades to change the destiny of DeKalb County and your country by coming out and voting. And that's a true statement.
Marci McCarthy (08:46):
That is the best practice actually overall. So you have to take away the financial for in 2022 as well as in 2024 and inspired actually Fulton County and some other counties out there. So the condition of participation in that mode is you cannot have a contested primary and you really do have to wait until the end of the qualifying period to make that determination. But we signed contracts with all of our candidates saying that we would be making a one-time donation to their campaign on the condition that they ended up not running opposed, and that they were requested to appear at our Georgia capital to do the qualifying together. And we did it on one afternoon doubling the Republican qualifying platform or number of candidates in one afternoon for the general Assembly. By doing that together, we had carpet literally rolled out. We had the media there and we were all in the capitol stairs taking tons of great pictures and just family friends supporters that was the kickoff of each of their campaigns. And then I took them all into the qualifying office together as their chairman, and we completed all the, they have to keep the qualifying paperwork, but it was a real proud moment for the entire DeKalb Republican party to see 11 candidates that are down ballot and three congressional candidates come together and see an opportunity for representation in change and truly having that moment of the destiny of DeKalb County and our country
Marci McCarthy (11:13):
Republicans to
Marci McCarthy (11:14):
Vote for. Well, for a state race, the qualifying fee does go to the party and the state of Georgia. So these were not county races. The only time we did county races and did the qualifying fee payment was for our three school board races back in 2022.
Marci McCarthy (11:43):
Yes. So immediately following their qualifying period, we set up a bootcamp. So Sunday afternoons we're running in our primaries around because of the redistricting that the Democrats self-imposed on themselves in Georgia and failed miserably over. They ended up going and having to primary each other. So they had for the first time contested primaries with long established candidates. So you saw a lot of retirements and a lot of new people jumping into the fold. So they had a very busy primary season. We took that time to get their names out there, but get them trained from media training to how to and build their websites, the branding of the campaign logos, the signage, just getting them ready for prime time and then teaching them all the different opportunities of how to get out the vote. So we helped become that campaign infrastructure out of the get go to get them out of the nest. The expectation was we're not running your campaign. So it was very, very clear about that, but we're going to provide you with the guardrails and opportunity to set you on your course for success.
Marci McCarthy (13:00):
They're so excited and very optimistic. So what we've seen is actually the Democrats don't know how to campaign because they've never had to spend money in a place that was a safe place for them. They never had opposition. So they're kind of scrambling. It's actually really funny, and we live rent free in their heads, so they completely go crazy every time that they're challenged. I'm seeing driving all over DeKalb County. Now, there's definitely some Vault Harris signs here and there, but I don't see any of the down ballot candidate science anywhere. Now, our sign strategy is even very strategic. So what we did was built a form on the DeKalb v p.org website that lists all of our candidates as well as President Trump, and you can request your signs from President Trump all the way down. And what we do do is we look through the lookup of that address, and even if they're just asking for a Trump sign for the yard, our candidate that aligns with that location, that household is delivering the sign making voter contact.
Marci McCarthy (14:11):
So we're getting down ballot signs concurrently in the yards. So a state senate candidate, for example, might be delivering the sign for President Trump and she's out there delivering her sign and then whatever corresponding house district sign or vice versa. So they all actually have sign inventories in their garages and wherever they're storing their signage. So they all have a ST of President Trump signs, which we got from the campaign. And then they have their signs and then they've cross pollinated with each other sign where there's crossover in the districts because a state senate is a larger district and they might have three or crossover house districts. And then the congressional districts are also there, so they'll have the corresponding congressional district. Consequently, we have put out thousands and thousands of signs. So when you drive around DeKalb County, it looks like a red county because there's Trump signs and Amelia signs and Jeff Newland signs and Kendra signs. It's kind of wild. And so I have friends and family calling and they're like, we don't know what's going on in the county.
Marci McCarthy (15:27):
We're seeing all these Republican signs everywhere, and there's no signs of the down ballot candidates. And interestingly, because of this redistricting process, which again failed miserably on the Democrats path, they redistricted themselves into new districts. So they don't even have an eye next to their name, but they're really not an I and there's no connectivity with their constituents. And these constituents still think that they have a different representative who may have been retired primaried out or something like that. So for all intents and purposes, what we're hearing from all the canvassing that we've been doing since beginning of summer, enter president day is we've never had a politician come to our house before, so thank you. So they're putting the signs in the yards, and so they're not really thinking about the party overall. You have Dr. Barry, this who is a orthodox Jew retired doctor who had practiced his offices in the heart of DeKalb County for many years overall.
Marci McCarthy (16:35):
And so it's been a predominantly Jewish district, and his opponent voted against the antisemitism bill as well as the resolution denouncing Hamas. So he's using that to his favor and going into every synagogue in church and talking about that overall and that he supports Israel. He's an Orthodox Jew and he's a medical respected doctor who was already assisting these people. When he gets to question, what have you done for us? He's like, I've already been there with you in your worst of moments with you and your family. And so there's empathy. There's already preexisting relationship that didn't exist necessarily in the context of the political spectrum. But what's just really amazing is watching my candidates truly, truly passionate at connecting with their communities and the resignation of the people because they feel like there's somebody that's going to look out for them that's not taking their vote for granted, that wants to earn the opportunity tot them in the general assembly.
Marci McCarthy (17:58):
We had people believe in us, invest in us. So one of the other tips that I would offer is to set up an investors program, a reoccurring type of donors program. So we did that really at the get go. So we have reoccurring revenue coming in every single month, and we built a budget for all these things. So we weren't trying to fundraise at the 11th hour in a presidential cycle or a major midterm cycle. So the money was there. And what I understand is ours far exceeded actually what the Democrats had in their stockpile because they spent it on the Guber tolio candidate or the presidential candidate, and they didn't have an infrastructure, and so they didn't really need to fundraise like the way we did. And we just, I don't want to say saved it for a rainy day, but we planned for this. So we made our investments and we're just simply executing on an incredible strategic plan with the money that has already been raised and then just allocated and put in the best type of methods. And we're leveraging a digital platform out there that didn't even exist two years ago. We use Facebook a lot a couple of years ago, but this is a hundred times better.
Marci McCarthy (19:21):
So we partnered with a company called Landmark Communications, and they're a specialty of political consulting and advertising and data and things like that. And I sat down with Mark Roundtree, who's the CEO of Landmark Communications, and I said, we have 11 down ballot candidates. We've got to come up with something. This is my budget. So we initially started with around $21,000 coming to the table and I said, we've got to be equitable in giving opportunity to our candidates that are running in 11 different races. So I don't want to give directly to the campaign because that's going to spread that money pretty quickly downwards, and it's not going to be as effective, but what can we do? And then the cost of door knocking has gone through the roof. It's been went up like three times what it was in 2022. And with that many candidates, it really can't be even cost effective of doing door knocking.
Marci McCarthy (20:23):
So they're going to have to do their own canvassing with their own volunteers. And being a presidential year, we've been able to piggyback off of the Trump campaign and do a lot of stuff together organically sometimes with them, sometimes again, that cross-pollination of a state senate candidate with a State House candidate down and looked at the have 79% coverage, which makes us the second largest coverage in the metro area, meaning we have pretty much coverage of all our Sta
Marci McCarthy (20:58):
te House and state senate races. Gwinnett actually is ahead of us with one state senate race that they didn't get a Republican candidate for, but we did better than Fulton, we did better than Cobb. So how can you allocate that money and make it most effective? So we built a message, a plan around first hitting households that set certain criteria and that household had to be in that 79% zone overall.
Marci McCarthy (21:27):
So we were not going to waste money on a household that didn't have a Republican candidate to go vote for. So that precision marketing really went into play. And then so they pulled the dataset and what they do, we've been running, we pay for the ads in terms of being delivered only, so it's $25 per 1000 ads delivered. So I don't pay for an ad unless it's delivered and watched. And these ads right now on that platform really are near impossible to skip over, and they're only 30 seconds anyway. And our ad is very compelling. So we focused on three areas. One is the economy, but lowering the cost of living by working on taxes and things like that. The second thing is school choice and having that because the DeKalb schools in general are some of the worst in the state and they continue to deteriorate and decline.
Marci McCarthy (22:22):
So school choice is a real essential for those that reside in DeKalb County. And the third is safer communities. And most people have, you turn on our local news almost every single night and they'll just say, dek County is a sign of this crime or shooting this robbery and some horrific kind of crime. DeKalb County is the fourth largest county in the state of Georgia, and it's probably bigger than some states and other cities. So DeKalb County is a very diverse county, and so you really, when you say DeKalb County, it's very misleading when you talk about the dangers of DeKalb County. But crime goes everywhere. We're seeing an uptick and everything like that no matter what our zip code within DeKalb County is. And this resonating with people overall. So we came up with a message that showed the contrast between Democrats and what Republicans would do for them. And if your viewers want to watch it, visit DeKalb com. The ad is there, and that's dlb com and the ad is awesome, and we delivered it to, we're approaching about a million ads delivered now and then about 40,000 ads delivered to people's cell phones since early voting has started. And we'll go all the way through election day. And what the other cool part about this is they're looking at the voter rolls, and if you've already voted, they're taking the household out of the queue. So notting money
Marci McCarthy (24:18):
By doing that, we can add to the list that hasn't come out there and you can expand the reach farther. So if you've already voted, and we didn't focus on hard, hard Republicans that vote in every single election, it was totally a waste of money. We had a small number set aside for our members and our candidates so that they could see the ad and see that their return on investment overall, which was a good thing to do, but in general, they didn't see the ads, they just been hearing about it. So the traffic to the DeKalb DOP com website, we had new people show up at our breakfast as a result of that, that didn't even realize there was a Republican party, DeKalb County. So we've put ballot questions ballot in the primaries. Have you heard of the DeKalb Republican Party? Have you visited Dek? A ballot question? It's a great tip. Have you visited Dek, which is our organization website? So we put that actually on.
Marci McCarthy (25:18):
So my cousin who lives in DeKalb County, who kind of leans more Democrat but voted in 2022 on a Republican primary ballot because he didn't like the options that were in front of him. And so we were at a family gathering and he asked me about those ballot questions because did you have anything to do with that? And I said, yeah, we did. We put those on there. And I said, it's a free marketing questionnaire and it's an advertisement to everyone that pulls a Republican ballot. So little things like that may go tons of miles overall, but everything from that sign strategy, just putting a web form on our website and then making sure our candidates had the stocks of signs and then just knew about the delivery and we had a whole lookup system using the voter database of knowing that where they are and where they should be going. So if little things like that can go that big differences. Now certainly having a marketing budget like we did for our advertising campaign is paying dividends. We're very, very hopeful that we're going to put some extra votes in President Trump's bucket and be a part him coming back to the White House from Georgia. So we're for that.
Marci McCarthy (27:02):
We did it from the very get go, and quite frankly, most people have stayed on and added to our list. There's some perks and benefits. You get special heating at our breakfasts, some recognition on our website and other special events and accolades like that. It doesn't cost you anything to do that, but you don't take them for granted. You show your appreciation as they should be recognized, but you're not asking for money in a time of need. It's already built into their household budget and they're so honored because right now they're seeing the results of their investment. They're seeing ads, they're seeing candidates that are campaigning. They were all at the capitol with us. We were together. It was a huge crowd. So we told the Georgia Republican Party that we were coming, actually, they called us. They're like, what? Are you coming? We just cleared this late for you guys because we'll take up the whole oxygen of the room in the afternoon. And what was awesome when we did it, the Democrats were sitting there in their qualifying office completely empty. They're just looking at what's going on there. And we even had a couple candidates that defected from the Dek Democrat and joined us as Republicans on the ballot so that even another kind of,
Marci McCarthy (28:57):
We literally had every local media station down there and the AJC down there and actually some national press. So they were following around with cameras. It was like a press conference on the stairs watching all of us together. It was amazing. We had every local station there and then some
Marci McCarthy (30:18):
All marketing. So my background is marketing and events, so I'm taking a lot of what I've learned in my business and professional career and just applying it to the political spectrum. And it's kind of funny to watch. It just simply spun off and work. So it's really amazing and amazing if you run it just like you're truly a marketing and event. It works. People are very receptive to it and with strong messaging, branding, good graphics, and just knowing what you're supposed to do, even though there are moments, I will be honest that we're just trying to figure some of this stuff out. I mean, there was no playbook for us when we did this for the first time in 2022. We're all kind of looking at each other. What do we do? What's a push card? What do I need a push card versus a door hanger or a postcard?
Marci McCarthy (31:17):
I mean, little things like that. Where do you get signs printed and then, oh, you need to buy the sticks. I mean, it was kind of revelations like that. And now fast forward, we templated a lot of this out. So all of our candidates that needed a website were given one and created one by Rick Shepherd who was on our team. And we had a template for them. They chose the color scheme and we worked with them with the design and their logo and branding and the messaging, but there was still core messaging that aligned with the DeKalb Republican party and a state party, but they put their own spin to it like I'm a grandma or a single mom or a Jewish retired doctor. But it came our own persona. And so that's really beautiful about it. But, and so when we do it again in 2026, oh my god, I'm not even versus 12 days away from our election, so I can't even think about 2020, but I'm hoping we're going to be doing some reelections in that and adding to our platform and some of the commissioners and some of the county type of races, we've stayed away from those overall, but municipals are next year and then going in school boards and things like that.
Marci McCarthy (32:53):
But we've got to get a few successes. We've got to flip a couple seats, but we've proven voter turnout can be done from the bottom up by doing a jail ballot strategy pushing up to the top of the ballot.
Marci McCarthy (33:10):
So we have had measurable success, but certainly Governor Kemp was reelected with 25,000 new votes that he did not have in 2018, which took away from Stacey Abrams because that was a total rematch and DeKalb County was supposed to be her home base. We had in 2022 Democrats actually having to create websites, newsletters. They were probably scrambling around trying to figure out where to get campaign signs just like we were. They had no money. It was funny watching them trying to set up fundraisers because they have never really done that for themselves before. But fast forward to present day, were a lot more confident and it's just actually really fun to watch how we did doubling the voter turnout, increasing the margins of victory, and then just actually getting, just a little while ago before we went on air, the county next to us, Fulton County, I tweeted out an endorsement type of fun tweet for Courtney Kramer who's running for DA against Fannie Willis. And Fannie Willis used it in the tweet actually in a fundraiser attempt today that the Republican chair is tweeting out for Courtney Kramer. I had a Trump hat on and a fire fanny shirt on. It was beautiful for a new tweet that I love living rent free.
Marci McCarthy (34:52):
You also were,
Marci McCarthy (34:57):
Yes, we used to be the second when I took office in 2021. Yeah, percentage wise, we were the second Bluest County in the state of Georgia because of the success points of doubling Republican voter turnout and just increasing the margins in victory, seeing more Republicans coming out and voting. We're now the third county in the state of Georgia, and we did that in under four years
Marci McCarthy (35:28):
Ourselves.
Marci McCarthy (35:51):
Well, think about simple messaging, right? You have MAGA Make America Great Again. We have Vote to Cab Bread and we've used it for the last several years. People hashtag it and put it all in their social media posts and people talk about that overall. So they'll say, vote to cab bread. So we have made a very simple message and then made that what that means is giving the Republicans an opportunity to earn your vote, not take your vote for granted. Thank
Marci McCarthy (36:24):
You so much for joining. Before we, you can follow me at Marcy McCarthy us, M-A-R-C-I and HA RT HY capitals. We have a have.
Narrator (36:57):
Thank you very much. The Jenny Beth Show is hosted by Jenny Beth Martin, produced by Kevin Han and directed by Luke Livingston. The Jenny Beth Show is a production of Tea Party Patriots action. For more information, visit tea party patriots.org.
Jenny Beth Martin (37:19):
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