Matt Esguerra was working as a deputy political director on a recent statewide campaign in California when he was tasked with hiring junior staff.
“I was asking around, people couldn’t find any resumes,” he told C&E. “But five, ten years ago that wouldn’t have been a problem. People were normally clamoring [to work] on these statewide campaigns.”
As Esguerra put effort into finding talent, while balancing the demands of his job, he thought there must be a better way to find potential hires.
Later, he connected with Chloe Mansell, who became a colleague after he joined Axiom Strategies’ San Diego office. Together, they’ve launched the Republican Staff Association to help build a community of GOP staffers in the Golden State.
While the effort is confined to California, it’s inception this year highlights how practitioners on the right are innovating in order to adapt to a drastically changing labor market. And in some ways, RSA is the right’s answer to the wave of unionization of campaigns and firms that’s been taking place on the left.
“Having an organization like this, we’re not unionizing, we’re just providing a different place for support,” said Mansell. “It can be an isolating career. It’s longer hours than people usually work. It gets personal. [We wanted to] have a support group of people to talk about that with so that you can really find what you’re comfortable with, what the industry should be doing, what works and what doesn’t, [and] how to manage staff.”
She added: “The main goal of all of this is to keep people happy and keep people in political careers. We don’t want people exiting and running for the hills.”
The association requires members, who pay $50 annually, to be full-time staff on either a Republican campaign, a firm, working for a GOP office holder or a fundraiser. It current has some 60 members, the founders said.
Part of the appeal, in addition to the networking, has been the training provided by more experienced practitioners who speaking to the group at regular Zoom events.
“Logistically, trying to get people together from San Diego to Sacramento is difficult. I think the transition for people to be doing more Zooms throughout the pandemic has allowed for people to feel connected through the long distance,” said Mansell.
“It was ready to be born because people were realizing, ‘hey, our talent’s leaving.’ There’s not enough people to staff these campaigns that we have. And California’s not lost. There are definitely congressional campaigns that need good staff that we can win this cycle.”
With that in mind, there’s also a resume bank on the association’s website where members can submit their CVs, which Esguerra expects “to streamline that process of I have someone, do you have someone?”
