About Eric Budd
Eric Budd runs Boulder Colorado Voter Guide, an independent publication launched in 2016. He is a political data director and software engineer that lives in Boulder. His experience founding and leading political organizations has led to systemic change in Boulder and statewide in Colorado.
Co-Founder – Colorado Community Research
2022 to Present
- Co-founded an issue polling start-up that performs simple and cost-effective SMS-based polling
- Wrote a data pipeline that processes county-level voter data to create voter populations for survey
- Identified key polling demographics around age, voter history, and party affiliation to successfully poll a local issue
- Developed and tested political messaging, integrating results into messaging and field plan for a local issue campaign
Campaign Co-Director – Boulder Progressives
2023
- Endorsed and supported two progressive candidates, electing one, in Boulder’s first ever direct election of mayor using Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) / Instant Runoff Voting (IRV)
- Endorsed and elected two candidates for city council who are strong advocates on housing, social justice, and climate change
- Built coalitions with Sierra Club and Better Boulder to work for universal support of progressive candidate endorsements
- Endorsed and campaigned for school board candidates, electing two progressive candidates to BVSD
- Worked with Boulder Issue Polling to develop and run a statistically valid poll on 2023 measure 302 Safe Zones and Boulder issues
- Extensive post-election analysis determining levels of support, election maps, and analysis of Cast Vote Record (CVR) of instant runoff voting and other election outcomes
Campaign Co-Director – People for Voter Turnout
2022
- Created, managed, and ran successful campaign to move off-cycle municipal elections to November of even years
- Researched and analyzed local election performance in Boulder, comparing to published studies on age, voter history, and racial data in local elections
- Collaborated across several local campaigns to develop models and data sharing plan to coordinate text-messaging and lit-drop field plans for maximum impact
- Developed presentations to win endorsements from 15+ organizations and a broad coalition of community leaders such as Colorado Working Families Party, NAACP Boulder County, ACLU Colorado, Showing Up for Racial Justice, Sierra Club, and New Era
Campaign Co-Director – Bedrooms Are For People
2020 to 2021
- Created, managed, and ran campaign to reform Boulder’s discriminatory housing occupancy laws
- Served as campaign tech lead for the first municipal measure in the country to get on the ballot using an online, digital petition system, collecting over 3,500 signatures
- Developed software for data intake, APIs, voter database matching, and text-messaging to create an end-to-end petition signing process with data collection
- Produced live-updating analytics and graphics to update our team on petition progress
- Organized regional support for the passage of Colorado HB24-1007, ending discriminatory occupancy limits statewide
Campaign Organizer – Boulder Progressives
2019
- Co-founded the organization to endorse and campaign for progressive Democratic candidates in city council races
- Built coalitions with pro-housing and environmental groups
- Elected a majority of our endorsed candidates in the organization's first year of existence
- Developed messaging and strategies on social justice issues centered on housing, homelessness, and policing
Boulder City Council Candidate – Elect Eric Budd
2017
- Ran the most tech-forward campaign in Boulder City Council history
- Developed and implemented direct voter outreach through social media, texting, field campaign with a 20k budget and 40 volunteers
for State House
Campaign Project Manager – Elect Angelique Espinoza
2016
- Managed a core team of eight volunteers to plan and execute a Colorado House of Representatives Democratic Primary campaign
- Analyzed voting precincts to create a strategy for direct mail, phone calling, and field campaign
- Researched and implemented social media communications and online marketing strategy
- Developed field organizing strategy and worked with field director for implementation
- Organized plans for local caucus, county convention, and primary election