Stephen For SLC

Opportunity

In 2025, I managed Stephen Otterstrom’s campaign for Salt Lake City Council. We came within 2% of unseating an incumbent who outspent our campaign 4-to-1. Using this momentum, Stephen decided to run to represent Salt Lake City’s Westside in the state legislature the next year, and we went on to win this race.

Stephen’s community, the Westside of Salt Lake City, has been historically ignored by elected leaders. This neglect has led to a downward spiral of low voter turnout, with the average for legislative primaries being only 35.1%.

Using the momentum from his last election and his authentic concern for working-class people, we ran a cost-effective campaign that made an outsized impact during the 2026 primary season.

Strategy

Messaging and Visuals

Stephen is not your average politician. Voters are tired of generic, talking-point politicians, and this brand’s use of bright colors, gradients, nostalgic typography, and fun illustrations showcased that Stephen was unconventional. The fight was for important issues — education, housing, saving the Great Salt Lake — but that doesn’t require the visuals to be safe.

To show Stephen’s commitment to the community and distinguish him among five other primary candidates, the campaign used collective language (“We deserve better,” “I am fighting alongside you,” “Our tax money should be spent helping the people, not enriching billionaires”). When asked policy questions, the campaign’s responses were detailed and thorough, and we always answered follow-up questions.

Direct Voter Contact

The expected turnout was around 1-in-3 registered voters, and only 1-in-3 residents of the district were registered. With so few people likely to participate in the election, I built the campaign’s strategy to ensure every likely voter would have a direct contact at their doors (conversations when they answered the door and literature drops when they didn’t), with the candidate personally making half of those visits. I also had the candidate attend community events — from festivals to protests to volunteer activities — to get him out in the community.

Digital Voter Contact

To increase the campaign’s outreach, I built a digital communications plan to contact lower-propensity voters. For social media, we engaged with Salt Lakers through existing digital channels that they already frequent, sharing videos, and answering every question asked of the candidate. These posts had excellent engagement, with our posts reaching tens of thousands of people and earning hundreds of comments.

For paid media, we published digital ads and paid to send mass texts. I split our video and image ads among a general audience who lived in the area and a retargeting audience who interacted with our social media accounts and/or visited our website. These ads received 86,000 impressions from 18,000 individuals. With our text messaging campaigns, we focused on education and interaction instead of fundraising. Across 15,000 texts, 37.1% of recipients clicked on the links we included.

With our owned media, I built a website to serve as the main hub for the campaign. This included a detailed policy platform, proposed legislation, and endorsements from everyday community members. To view the archived pages, please click the buttons below:

Results

After contacting thousands of potential voters directly and digitally, Stephen won the primary with 59.3% of the vote. At the micro scale, he won 80% of district precincts. With no opponents in the general election, Stephen will begin his legislative service in January 2027.

Election Results

Financial Results

$8,247.43 in expenditures

$5.45 spent per vote. This was the lowest of any Democrat victor in Salt Lake County, with an average of $14.77 spent per vote.