- Built and launched campaign website within 48 hours for newly created State Senate district, establishing early frontrunner status in a race serving 300,000+ constituents.
- Campaign secured decisive victory with nearly 60% of the vote against a well-funded political dynasty candidate, launching Kristen's career as a State Senator.
- Website adapted mid-campaign to district redistricting changes while maintaining grassroots momentum, demonstrating technical agility during critical electoral period.
After building Zohran’s assembly campaign website, I continued working with electoral campaigns by developing the website for Kristen Gonzalez’s 2022 State Senate run. This opportunity arose during a critical redistricting period in New York that created a new State Senate seat representing over 300,000 people. The circumstances required us to launch quickly after the district’s creation, we worked under significant time constraints hoping to be first to declare interest in the new seat.
Our grassroots campaign embodied the surging working-class organizing across New York City. We turned down corporate funding, instead continued to build on a broad coalition of community supporters and orgs and a dedicated volunteer network. Working closely with a designer, Kristen, and communications campaign volunteers, we rapidly developed the site’s branding and structure within days of the district’s announcement. This positioned the campaign as a clear front-runner from the start and played a crucial role in securing momentum that propoelled the campaign to victory.
Website Features and Specs
The website served multiple critical functions for the campaign and contained a variety of features:
- An introduction to Kristen, a tech worker, running as a first time candidate to serve her community
- Email sign-up functionality for supporter and volunteer engagement and retention
- Event management system that integrated Airtable data into the website
- Interactive district map helping voters identify if they lived in the newly created district
- Donation system integration with ActBlue for one-click donations
- Policy platform presentation, with dropdowns for quick and deep browsing by potential voters
- Collection of press coverage of the candidate and campaign to build trust and credibility
- Multilingual support to serve the diverse district population
- Listing of endorsements from unions, local organizations, and elected officials
- Mobile-first responsive design to reach constituents on all devices
- Accessibility features for users with disabilities (alt text, proper contrast ratios)
- SEO optimized for search engines, including meta descriptions and structured data
- Used a design and visual identity crafted by our design team used across the website and social media.
Rapid Adaptation
The campaign was further tested when the district lines were redrawn partway through the campaign, requiring us to adapt our messaging and particularly our interactive district map to reflect the new boundaries. This flexibility proved crucial in maintaining accurate information for voters throughout the campaign. Our ability to quickly adapt while having a clear and consistent message and growing grassroots volunteer system that was easy for new supporters to plug-into was what led to us winning this race against a challenger who was highly funded and corporately connected.
Technical Implementation
The website was built using a modern tech stack designed for performance and maintainability:
- 11ty (Eleventy) static site generator
- Tailwind CSS for responsive, efficient styling
- Netlify for deployment and hosting
- Netlify CMS (now Decap) for content management
- Custom API integration with Airtable for volunteer event management
This architecture allowed for fast page loads, easy updates by non-technical staff, and sophisticated functionality despite budget constraints. Similar to Zohran’s site, we prioritized accessibility and performance to ensure all constituents could access information regardless of device or internet quality.
Impact and Results
The website served as an essential tool for voter education, volunteer recruitment, and fundraising in a district that was entirely new to voters. By providing clear information about district boundaries, policy positions, and volunteer opportunities, we helped introduce Kristen to voters who had no prior relationship with her. Despite facing a well-funded opponent that came from a local political dynasty, we won the race with nearly 60% of the total votes. Kristen now serves as Chair of both the Internet and Technology Committee and the Elections Committee in the New York State Senate. In these key positions, she leads critical initiatives addressing how New York State adapts to emerging technologies like AI.