In 2004, the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund launched its first-ever presidential election campaign in a bid to defeat George W. Bush. Although disappointed by the results, the Action Fund was exceedingly successful in its goal of winning conservation votes for Kerry and laying the ground work for significant and effective Political Campaigns in the years to come.

The Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund operated what was essentially a niche program in 2004, aimed squarely at conservation-minded voters. Our goal was to educate these voters about the records of the two candidates, Bush and Kerry, and persuade them to vote their conservation values. An independent evaluation of this effort revealed some exciting results.

Our pre-campaign survey told us that while most conservation voters cared a great deal about conservation, a surprisingly large 61% of them knew little about the two candidates' conservation records. The same survey told us that when voters learned of Bush's record, they swung into Kerry's camp by an astounding margin of 16 points.

To make a difference in the race, we identified and contacted more than 191,000 known conservationists in 11 states with more than 800,000 mail pieces, phone calls, and emails. In the end, 98% of this base voted for Kerry and only 2% for Bush. Would they have voted for Kerry without our encouragement? For those who would have gone to the polls, the answer is probably yes -- but fully one of three of these base voters told us that our materials helped encourage them to vote.

Early on in the process, one of our political consultants commented that he believed that our program that targeted known conservationists - a group no one else was targeting - could be "political gold ". In the end, it proved to be exactly that. A target population that cared deeply about conservation but had extremely little information on the candidates' conservation positions, ended up voting for John Kerry by huge margins in the states in which we were active, a significant accomplishment for any fledgling program and one that bodes well for future campaigns.
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