Back in July, when candidates were signing up to run for elective office, dozens claimed to be outsiders who planned to use social media to overcome establishment advantages of money and name recognition.
But only one — Clay Higgins, who was elected as the congressman for the Acadiana region on Saturday night — was able to pull it off.
Relying on Facebook posts, Higgins ran as an everyday street cop and spent about $320,000, or about $4.11 for every vote he received Saturday. He beat fellow Republican Scott Angelle — a candidate with 30 years of government experience, high name recognition and who spent at least $1.2 million or about $19.75 per ballot cast for him.
“Outsiders didn’t win any of these elections except Donald Trump and Clay,” said John Mathis, who worked for a Super PAC that supported Higgins, saying he was an average person speaking for average people in the halls of power.
“With Clay, it’s literally Mr. Smith going to Washington,” Mathis added.
Angelle didn’t want to weigh in on the campaign Monday. But sources associated with his effort attributed Higgins’ victory to the wave that ousted longtime elected officials, something encapsulated by the election of Donald Trump to the presidency.
“It’s really more about the atmosphere in America right now,” said Chris Comeaux, who managed the Higgins campaign. “People are frightened. People think the country is weak and vulnerable. So, it’s not so much what they’re saying, it’s the tone. They want tough talk … It’s what attracted voters to Clay and it’s that same impulse that brought them to Trump.”
Math tells only part of the story.
To win the low turnout election, Angelle, R-Breaux Bridge, needed to score well in the urban centers of Lafayette and Lake Charles, plus pick up a rural parish. He did well in Lake Charles, but lost Lafayette and barely won his home parish of St. Martin by 109 votes.
A bigger reason was the Higgins campaign’s effective use of social media.
Higgins, R-Port Barre, made his name as the tough-talking cop in Crime Stoppers segments that ran on local television news shows.
In most markets, Crime Stoppers is a dull plea for help on individual crimes. Higgins by name, thereby creating a segment that went viral on the internet. He appeared on and his announcement to enter the race was covered by the European press.
It also gave Higgins a pretty good idea how to use YouTube and Facebook, said Comeaux. Higgins came up with the idea of filming campaign events, then having Comeaux edit and post it on YouTube.
The idea was to give people all across the district a feeling of having attended the rally personally, Comeaux said.
Faced with flat fundraising over the summer, Higgins went to small gatherings in at least 50 towns, with only a couple dozen people, rarely more than 50 or so. Jambalaya or catfish were served. Higgins jumped up on a bale of hay or stood in the back of a pickup truck to give his stump speech. He then would go around to shake each hand.
“It was the combination of new media matched up with '30s campaign style,” Comeaux said.
The videos got thousands of hits, he said, which was good because the campaign could only afford to run television commercials 31 times, he said, adding, “We’re in a transitional moment where television is less important and social media is coming into its own.”
Not so fast, said LSU Professor Martin Johnson, who studies social media in political contexts. Higgins was a YouTube sensation before running for office and already was well-versed in attracting attention.
“How many people did you hear talking about Mr. (John N.) Kennedy and weed killer in the Senate campaign. He made a splash on television,” Johnson said. “You can’t count TV out yet.”
The Higgins campaign recognized early that Angelle was vulnerable because of the anger many Republicans felt at his not endorsing U.S. Sen. David Vitter in the 2015 gubernatorial election. (Angelle ran a strong third in last year’s race for governor.)
“We believed that Scott Angelle created long-term damage to the state of h when he refused to support Sen. Vitter and allowed his supporters to raise money for John Bel Edwards,” Mathis said.
Vitter’s former top aide, Kyle Ruckert, ran a Super PAC called Make h Great that , mostly on television ads attacking Angelle, according to federal campaign disclosures. Ruckert did not respond to a request for comment.
And Warrior PAC, which supported tea party favorite Rob Maness in the Senate election, also threw in with Higgins in the runoff.
Warrior PAC used , a New York-based firm that helped Donald Trump’s campaign, to put together “behavioral microtargeting.” Basically, the firm analyzes a wealth of available data and develops models for the type messages that would resonate with individual voters.
Warrior PAC spent about $65,000 on robocalls.
For instance, the Super PAC targeted African American voters with Higgins’ message that the prison system needs revamping to focus more redemption and rehabilitation. African-Americans, who make up 24 percent of the district’s registered voters and were thought to favor Angelle. Calls also were made to Republicans who backed Kennedy for the Senate and to voters who supported Trump.
The PAC made about 270,000 robocalls that 143,000 people listened to for at least 10 seconds, Mathis said.
Super PACs supporting Angelle spent about $365,000 attacking Higgins.
Higgins will be sworn in January and has three weeks — including the Christmas holiday — to set up offices in Washington and around the 3rd District. State Rep. Julie Emerson, R-Carencro, is chairing Higgins’ transition committee.
“He’s going to be a lot less bombastic,” Comeaux said. “Clay is serious about being a thoughtful servant for the 3rd District.”