MEMO: RSLC Launches "Project Doorstrike” Initiative for 2025-2026 Election Cycle
MEMORANDUM
To: Stakeholders
From: Edith Jorge-Tuñón, President, Republican State Leadership Committee
Date: TBD
Subject: RSLC Launches "ProjectDoorstrike” Initiative for 2025-2026 Election Cycle
A Nationwide GOTV Strategy for 2025–2026
The RSLC and its affiliated PACs arelaunching a multi-state, multi-year initiative to build, test, and scale the most ambitious state-level paid GOTV and voter engagement program in the committee's history.
This initiative—"Project Doorstrike”—will operate across key target states, with initial investments in:
Virginia and New Jersey in 2025
Key battleground states in a midterm election year, including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin
Our effort will include:
Paid canvassing programs focused on building voter trust, distributing hyperlocal messages, and motivating low propensity Republicans
Early digital advertising and direct mail
Multi-lingual creative and collateral
To succeed in today’s political landscape, state Republicans must establish direct connections with voters. That’s why the RSLC and its affiliated PACs are launching Project Doorstrike—a nationwide initiative focused on reclaiming the ground game and achieving conservative victories. This marks the most ambitious, data-driven get-out-the-vote (GOTV) strategy in the committee’s history. By emphasizing personal engagement in key battleground communities, our goal is to create a sustainable path for victory starting in 2025 and expanding into 2026.
Timeline:
This program is now fully operational in Virginia and New Jersey, where we have already begun to measure the success of our tactics and started to see promising returns. These pilot states have enabled us to refine our targeting, data infrastructure, and field operations. Building on this momentum, we plan to expand the program to our midterm target states in the first quarter of 2026. Data modeling and district-level targeting will begin in early January, followed by an intensive field deployment well before summer. This aggressive timeline will give Republican candidates a critical advantage in establishing early name recognition, building local credibility, and securing voter relationships. If we execute as planned, we can use these early, data driven investments in battleground states to get out ahead of the flood of Democrat spending that we traditionally see in the fall of an even-year election.
Rationale Behind the Effort
1. Combatting Midterm Drop-Off
Republicans have become the party of low-propensity voters. Many of our strongest supporters—primarily working-class, rural, and non-college-educated Americans—are deeply aligned with our values and priorities. However, there is a critical challenge when it comes to turning them out: these voters often only show up at the polls when Donald Trump is on the ballot. When the President isn't running, they are significantly less likely to participate, regardless of their support for our candidates or agenda.
This reality has created a persistent turnout gap in midterm and off-year elections that we cannot afford to overlook. If we do not engage with these voters early, directly, and consistently, we risk losing their participation—and ultimately prevent ourselves from getting the turnout we need to win in tough districts.
Simply persuading these low-propensity voters is not enough. Winning the argument on the issues means little if our base does not show up to vote. Our opposition understands this and has built entire turnout operations designed to capitalize on Republican drop-offs during lower-turnout cycles. We saw the consequences of this most recently in the 2025 Wisconsin State Supreme Court race. Despite having a message that resonated with many conservative-leaning voters, our side suffered a worse than expected defeat because too many of our base voters stayed home.
Meanwhile, Democrats ran a highly energized and well-organized turnout operation that successfully brought their voters to the polls. That race should serve as a warning: unless we address our turnout problem, we will continue to lose winnable contests, especially in years when Donald Trump is no longer at the top of the ticket.
This is why our current program focuses not just on targeting and persuasion but also on activation. We are developing long-term voter contact strategies to reconnect with these Republicans early in the election cycle, build local relationships, and convert soft support into consistent turnout. Winning in 2026 and beyond will require more than the right message; it will necessitate ensuring that our people vote, regardless of who is at the top of the ticket.
2. Hyperlocal Messaging Is What Moves Persuadable Voters
National political narratives don’t sway persuadable voters—they’re moved by real-life concerns that affect them personally: the cost of living and taxes, community safety, and ensuring quality education for their children. That’s why our program prioritizes direct, local engagement that speaks to these everyday issues at the doors, rather than relying on the shifting narratives of the national media.
In Virginia, Republicans are highlighting how Democrats have broken their promises regarding tax relief, public safety, and economic growth. Despite clear public support, Democrats have blocked common-sense legislation aimed at lowering costs, fighting crime, and empowering parents – opting for partisan politics over genuine solutions.
As a result, working Virginians are paying more and feeling less safe. A similar dynamic is playing out in New Jersey, where Republicans are channeling voter frustration over skyrocketing costs, burdensome taxes, rising crime, and the erosion of parental rights. Throughout the Murphy administration, Democrat leadership has made the state increasingly unaffordable and unsafe, fueling momentum for a GOP resurgence focused on real, kitchen-table issues.
Republicans have a stronger message on the issues that matter. Our job is to deliver that message clearly and consistently, through targeted persuasion that brings voters to our side and holds Democrats accountable for their legislative failures. The playbook we are executing in Virginia and New Jersey to focus on local issues will need to be duplicated in our 2026 target states.
3. Reaching the Unreachable: The New GOP Voter
One of the defining traits of the new Republican voter coalition is their disengagement from traditional media. The voters we need to reach to win—particularly in off-year and midterm elections—are not regular consumers of political news, traditional cable programming, or paid digital advertising. Many do not have cable, skip over YouTube ads, ignore political mail, and are increasingly distrustful of institutions, including the media.
That means we cannot rely on broadcast, mail, or even digital media alone to reach them. To connect with these voters, we must meet them where they are—at their doors, in their community, and on their terms.
This is why the RSLC’s paid GOTV program is centered around high-quality, personal conversations, tailored to local issues and delivered by trained canvassers who can cut through the noise and establish trust. It's not enough to be seen or heard; we must be present. The voters we need won’t come to us—we must go to them.
4. Combatting the Democrat Money Machine
In 2024 alone, Democratic-aligned groups outspent Republicans 4:1, spending over $175 million in several key legislative districts. This trend is only accelerating. In 2026, in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, Democrats will leverage its national infrastructure to:
Drown out Republican messaging with nonstop digital and TV ad buys in the fall of 2026; and
Rapidly scale paid organizing programs in the months leading up to the 2026 elections
That’s why we’re starting now, not in August of 2026. Early voter contact, infrastructure building, and data modeling are the only ways to overcome the Democratic money machine.
Hitting The Ground Running
We didn’t wait for the fall in 2025 and we won’t do the same in 2026 — we have already hit the ground running. In Virginia and New Jersey, our early investments are laying the groundwork for success, demonstrating that direct, local engagement can have a profound impact in key districts.
Paid GOTV canvassing alone has already received over $2 million in investment—the most in RSLC history for an off-year election. Local partnerships and door-to-door conversations are building real trust in persuadable districts.
Conclusion
The RSLC and its affiliated PACs are launching "Project Doorstrike” to seize a long-term opportunity for building a majority, starting now before it's too late.
Our focus is on reaching voters that are often overlooked and require more personalized message —They won't come to us; we need to go to them. We will implement this on a large scale, with discipline and urgency.
History tells us that this will be a challenging election cycle. Midterms and presidential years often bring reduced turnout and shifting voter engagement for our coalition. However, history also shows how Republicans win: with a strong, targeted ground game that meets voters where they are. That's precisely what our paid Get Out The Vote (GOTV) program is designed to do.
We are facing a well-funded, nationally coordinated Democratic machine. Our response must be early, local, strategic, and relentless investments. With your early support, we will not only get a jump start on the competition; we will outmaneuver them at the door, on the airwaves, and at the ballot box.
Together, we can position state Republicans to buck historical trends during the next two years and build a permanent turnout apparatus that will pay dividends for cycles to come.
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