Our Work

Democrats did not control the Montgomery County, Pa., Board of Commissioners (a board of three members) from the Civil War until 2011, when then-state representative Josh Shapiro won an expensive, hard-fought campaign. Over the past decade-plus, Montgomery County has become a Democratic stronghold with scant political competition, including in primary elections.

In January 2023, now-Governor Josh Shapiro appointed county commission chair Valerie Arkoosh to become Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Health. Soon after, the county commission vice chair announced he would not seek re-election. For the first time in county history, both of the majority-party commission seats (the third is reserved for a non-majority member) were being vacated by incumbents, creating the potential for a competitive Primary.

Enter Neil Makhija, a first-generation Indian-American, Harvard-educated attorney, and former Obama and Gillibrand staffer. Recently married to a MontCo native, Makhija entered the race with few local political connections and little name recognition. Meanwhile, the county Democrats were preparing to nominate two party insiders, including a 15-year state representative.

Our firm created parallel plans for ensuring that the county party nominating convention would be truly competitive and for making sure voters became familiar with Neil. To achieve both objectives, we needed to take Neil’s campaign directly to voters. It was important to us that our candidate’s campaign appeared professional and therefore viable, so we designed palm cards for the endorsement convention. Our bet that the party would not put as much effort into persuading voters about their chosen candidates paid off: we secured an open primary election.

Instead of attempting to conceal Neil’s youth and accomplishments that were largely outside of MontCo, we leaned into that profile in our direct mail. Based on polling, Neil’s profile as a young Harvard-educated attorney who’d taken on the gun and pharmaceutical lobby, and who crucially had worked on voting rights, was a winning combination as concerns about violent efforts to overthrow the presidential election results in 2020 were fresh in people’s minds.

Our first mail piece, “Intro,” emphasized Neil’s youthful energy and his voting rights advocacy. Since Neil would be the first ever Asian-American county commissioner in Pennsylvania, our targeting included all voter file-identified Asian-American voters and a South Asian voter model. We were able to identify 6,700 South Asian Democratic voters thanks to a model created by our client the Indian American Impact Fund and added them to our universe.

Our next pieces focused on voting rights and gun safety policy. MontCo Commissioners directly oversee election administration, so Neil’s background fighting for democracy tested very well in polling.

Finally, we used high-level validators to wrap up our program. While the local party had endorsed in one of two open seats, the open primary in the second seat provided an opportunity to make a case to voters that Neil was supported by trusted, popular figures in Montgomery County politics.

In the end, Neil won the second of the two seats up, beating the Party’s candidate by 7,400 votes out of 92,000 votes cast, and went on to sail through the general election, becoming Pennsylvania’s first Asian-American county commissioner.