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Chaffetz wins easily, challengers fall short in Utah congressionals

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, Utah's popular Congressman and an early adopter of NationBuilder for his website and voter outreach, sailed to a third-term last night with 76.4 percent of the vote in the 3rd District. Challengers in districts 1 and 4 also used NationBuilder, but fell short of unseating incumbents.

Mia Love, mayor of Saratoga Springs, was trailing incumbent Rep. Jim Matheson by about 3,000 votes with all precincts reporting. She'd been behind double digits in the polls leading up to the August GOP convention, where she delivered a short floor speech. Love's digital team used that appearance to set off a successful fundraising drive and a run-up in the polls that had her and Matheson statistically tied going into Election Day.

In the 1st District, challenger Donna McAleer also used NationBuilder aggressively in a long-shot race against incumbent Rob Bishop. McAleer, who used NationBuilder's social media integration to connect with voters on Facebook, took 25 percent of the vote.

The Chaffetz campaign also took advantage of NationBuilder’s tight integration between the voter database, social media and fundraising.

"What we liked when we first saw NationBuilder last summer [2011] is that it had everything in one spot," Chaffetz campaign manager Leslie Jones told us earlier this year. "It was very clearly the next generation of campaigning - it can only get better from here."