GOP Firm Chief Sets Up Innovation Arm to Address the Party's Strategic Shortcomings

The Republican victories at the federal level in 2024 only papered over the cracks of the party’s outdated strategic approach to campaigns. That’s the conclusion of Wesley Donehue, founding partner at Push Digital, who this week announced he was stepping back from his leadership role at the firm to launch an innovation arm called Sandbox.

“Donald Trump ran a great campaign and a lot of people were able to ride his coattails, but there are still problems down ballot that people are ignoring,” said Donehue, who’s retaining the title of CEO but delegating day-to-day duties to Phil Vangelakos, a managing partner. “And if we don’t focus on it, we’re going to have a real problem in the future.”

Donehue hasn’t been the only practitioner on the right sounding the alarm over the party’s approach to campaigns. Michael Biundo, a partner at Ascent Strategic, raised a concern that local GOP committees were becoming organizations in name only.

“The group game, which was once handled by the party — state and/or federal — has been taken up by a fractured group of organizations that are disconnected and not working together,” Biundo wrote in a piece for C&E in October. “There are many people making money, but there isn’t a cohesive strategy. If we want to win consistently, we need to do better.”

Donehue also believes that the Republicans’ party infrastructure isn’t positioned for the current challenges candidates face reaching a diverse electorate in a fractured media environment. Because the leadership of the party’s campaign committees frequently changes over, he said, they have “no long-term vision beyond the election cycle.