Abbott’s mobile app links grassroots campaigning, smartphone era

AUSTIN – Gov. Greg Abbott’s campaign is hoping a luxury hairstyler or $500 grill and smoker will get Texans to join their get-out-the-vote efforts  this fall. 

The Abbott Impact mobile app is a grassroots campaign tool made for the digital age. And while it is free to use, earning prizes will require people to share information from their contact lists about their friends and family and to send them reminders to vote. Users rack up points by completing various tasks in the app like uploading their contacts, sending messages and logging on daily. The points are exchanged for the prizes. 

The app aims to help boost Republican votes against Texas Democrats, who are making an aggressive push to break a three-decade losing streak for statewide office. Recently, the campaign added more expensive prizes.

On Monday, the campaign’s social media account promoted the free swag for the first time.

“Get rewarded for supporting Texas,” the post said. 

The governor’s campaign is gamifying the traditional door-to-door work of winning elections, giving conservative Texans an incentive to reach out to their friends and neighbors ahead of the November midterms featuring several closely watched federal and state races.

The political fight in Texas is highlighted by the Senate race between GOP Attorney General Ken Paxton and Democratic state Rep. James Talarico of Austin. A Texas Democrat has not won a Senate race since 1988. 

At a campaign stop in Fort Worth last month, the governor said the app would be the “strongest method ever to get voters to turn out” in the midterms. 

“You’ll be able to know whether or not your neighbors in your neighborhood have or have not yet voted early,” he said. 

Abbott is running for a fourth term as governor against state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D-Austin. Hinojosa criticized Abbott’s mobile app, saying his candidacy does not drive people to the polls while promoting her own organizing tool called TeamTexasPublicSchools.com. 

“No one can get excited about Greg Abbott, so they have to offer prizes to get people to help him,” Hinojosa said in a statement. 

Since its launch in October, the app has been downloaded about 5,800 times from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, said Eduardo Leal, the Abbott campaign spokesman. That’s more than triple the number of downloads right before the Republican primary in March. 

Rewards previously included campaign merchandise like T-shirts or bumper stickers. The rewards recently expanded to include a VIP tour of the Governor’s Mansion, exclusive access to the governor’s election night party and items that retail for at least $400. The Dyson Airwrap hair styler appears to be the top prize, requiring 40,000 points. The retail price is $650, according to Dyson’s website. 

Donald Green, a political science professor at Columbia University who has studied voter outreach efforts, said it makes sense Abbott’s campaign would add more sought-after prizes. 

“They certainly don’t want to offer crummy rewards; otherwise they’ll have some answering to do,” he said. 

The app also serves as a more personal way for Texans to nudge fellow Republicans to cast a ballot. As Election Day approaches, campaigns and activists from both parties will bombard voters with text messages, campaign mailers and other outreach efforts. 

Getting a message from a friend or family member might have more impact than speaking to a stranger, Green said. 

“You would think that if you reached out to the people in your contact list, those would be high-quality contacts,” he added. “You’d really get a chance to get your word in.”

Joyojeet Pal, a University of Michigan professor whose research includes how social media is used in political campaigns, said there is evidence that a direct message from someone you know can drive up turnout by as much as eight percent. 

“On the face of it, that may not seem like a lot,” Pal said, “but in a tight election that has landslide value.”