A campaign update: Good for you, San Francisco!

Dear friends of the Briones Society,

Thank you!

There are still many ballots left to be counted, but as things stand our campaign for Republican County Central Committee appears to be a resounding success. Seventeen of the 19 candidates on our slate currently have enough votes to qualify for election to the Committee, capturing a supermajority of the 25 elected seats! Strange things do happen, but we’re cautiously optimistic that these results will persist through the final tally.

Before we get into the details, we want to say congratulations to all the candidates in this race, whether part of our slate or not, on a hard-fought campaign. We look forward to working together with all members of the Committee to grow the GOP.

Friends, we could not have done this without you, our supporters, and our network of committed volunteers. Together, we pored over endless tables of data, spoke at length with hundreds of voters and journalists, earned the endorsements of dozens of civic leaders, sent tens of thousands of texts, made over 12,000 phone calls, distributed mailers and door-hangers, and published ads in every medium. Give yourselves a round of applause.

But we’re just getting started.

This election was about more than giving San Francisco’s conservatives the Republican Party they deserve. It was about showing that there’s a path forward: away from the chaos politics of today’s GOP establishment and towards a principled, pragmatic, and conservative Republican Party. It was about making a promise to voters in San Francisco and elsewhere: a credible, competitive alternative – which is vital in our two-party system – is on its way. And it was about reminding Republicans in cities how to win and how to win together: by listening to voters, doing the hard work of organizing, staying on message, and finding common ground with independents.

The secret sauce to all of the above is you – the disaffected, disillusioned, common-sense voter who is tired of conspiracy theories from the right and virtue signaling from the left – reengaging not just in politics, but in party politics, one by one by one (and bringing a friend!). And that’s because so much of the work of politics is done within the parties, long before anyone steps into a voting booth. To paraphrase John Adams: “This work must be done by somebody. If wise and honest men refuse it, others will not.”

We have shown that this is a strategy that can work in one of the most challenging environments for principled conservatives in America. We believe it can work elsewhere. So, while our candidates move purposefully to execute on our campaign promises here in San Francisco, our volunteers will be exploring how we can spread our message in the Bay Area and beyond.

With gratitude,

The Briones Society