Ex-Staffer Started CrossFit Newsletter Because He Loved Talking About CrossFit

The first rule of CrossFit is you have to talk about it and one former Capitol Hill staffer has devoted his career to doing just that.

Justin LoFranco spent seven years working in communications while also trying to make time for his favorite workout.

He recalled “walking down the halls of the Capitol building in shorts, getting ready to get on my bike with my backpack to take it to CrossFit class before 7:30 p.m.”

In January 2016, the timing aligned for LoFranco to turn his passion for CrossFit into a full-time job.

“After seven years of [working on the Hill], basically at the highest level, I just really took a look at it and said, ‘I don’t think I have a whole lot left to offer, emotionally and physically,’” he said. “There was a whole new crop of young folks who are ready to step up and had a lot to offer.”

He said he realized it was “time for me to step out of the way.”

The California native decided to move back home to start his daily newsletter “Morning Chalk Up, ” so named after the first thing CrossFitters, weightlifters and gymnasts do before approaching the bar: chalk up their hands.

“Once we added ‘Morning,’ it all made sense. The ‘Morning Chalk Up’ is the first thing you read every morning while drinking your coffee,” said LoFranco, now based in Southern California.

The newsletter has more than 20,000 readers globally.

LoFranco started on the Hill in 2009 in California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa ’s office, later moving to the House Oversight Committee to be digital director when Issa became chairman in 2011. He was also digital director for then-House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy .

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“At the end of the day, I’d been in digital politics since … really the [early] stages of digital politics,” he said. “Right after President [Barack] Obama had won, the House was sort of catching up a little bit, and the GOP was sort of catching up and making that a big component of their communications efforts.”

LoFranco was the Republican National Committee’s creative director for most of the 2014 election cycle. He also served stints in the presidential campaigns of both former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

All the time, he was doing CrossFit.

“I even had a mini, makeshift CrossFit gym built at Walker’s campaign headquarters in the garage,” he said. “We had a big garage there. I bought a bunch of equipment and I was CrossFitting there at night.”

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LoFranco recalled asking himself, “What would be the perfect confluence of this thing that I love on a professional side? I loved CrossFit and I loved digital and I knew there was such a hunger for that.”

His free newsletter “offers a bunch of different types of readers something worthwhile to start their day with. It’s grown and taken on its own life form and content structure now. But that was the idea,” he said.

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Editions cover everything from quotes of the day, songs to listen to, news updates, workout statistics, recipes, personal stories, shopping deals and events in various cities.

“If you’re in CrossFit, the first rule of CrossFit is you gotta talk about being in CrossFit,” LoFranco said “You think of that stereotype and play off of it and digital is the exact perfect way to go about doing that because it is kind of true, in a sense: CrossFitters love talking about CrossFit.”

Reps. Gallagher and Murphy Talk Bipartisanship Among Younger Members

Freshman Reps. Mike Gallagher. a Wisconsin Republican, and Stephanie Murphy. a Florida Democrat, represent the sentiment that the younger members in Congress strive to be more bipartisan.

Vice co-chairs of the Congressional Future Caucus, a group of members under the age of 45, Gallagher and Murphy spoke together Wednesday at a panel hosted by the Millennial Action Project.

“So much of the legislation that’s being done is about the past as opposed to forward thinking,” Murphy, 37, said.

She added that the challenge with older members is on the innovative economy.

“So much of what we are facing is about a change that I worry that some of my more mature, seasoned colleagues don’t quite understand in the sense that they have a hard time controlling their phones and having Siri interrupt meetings,” Murphy said.

Gallagher agreed and said, “I’m convinced that the way in which Congress operates is not the best.”

He has been an avid supporter of term limits and introduced a bill in March to impose them.

“[They’re a] good way of ending the constant careerism and endless, ‘I’m in the position myself to be a committee chair in 20 years and then I’ll run for Senate,’” Gallagher, 33, said.

He noted that his predecessor, former Rep. Reid Ribble, told him that once he knew he was retiring, he “worked way harder as a result” because he knew every day that he had one less day to make a difference.

The Millennial Action Project works to activate young policymakers to work across the aisle. The panel was moderated by Steven Olikara, MAP co-founder and president.

Mapping Out 2018 in the Senate

Eight months into the 2018 election cycle and with 16 months to go, the fundamentals of the Senate map haven’t changed.

One state has been added to the map: Alabama.

When Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions joined President Donald Trump’s Cabinet as attorney general, then-Gov. Robert Bentley appointed Luther Strange to replace him. But Kay Ivey, the new governor, set a special election to fill the remainder of Sessions’ term for this year rather than waiting for the next regularly scheduled election in 2018. Strange must now navigate a competitive GOP primary next month.

Democrats are still on the defensive this cycle. They’ve got 25 senators up for re-election, including 10 in states President Donald Trump won in 2016. Five of those states voted for both Trump and Mitt Romney in the last two presidential elections. By comparison, there are just eight Republican senators up for re-election, with only one (Dean Heller in Nevada) running in a state Hillary Clinton won in November.

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In the short term, those Trump-state Democrats were supposed to be a reservoir of votes for Senate Republicans and the White House. But it just hasn’t worked out that way on most issues.

Three Trump-state Democrats — Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, and Joe Donnelly of Indiana — voted to confirm Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. But otherwise, there isn’t a lot of evidence that the most vulnerable Democratic senators are worried about opposing the president.

Those Trump-state Democrats were supposed to translate into a large batch of takeover opportunities next year. But Republicans can’t get too cocky about the map.

Since 1982, a total of 110 out of 114 senators from the opposite party of the president have won re-election in midterms. according to Harry Enten at FiveThirtyEight. Of course that rate of 96 percent is partially dependent on the map of each cycle, but that’s not a small sample size and Democrats have some savvy incumbents up this cycle.

So while Republicans should expand their majority significantly, according to the presidential map, midterm election realities and the strength of the Democratic incumbents could make that task more difficult.

History isn’t as kind to senators from the same party as the president who are up for re-election in midterms. Their re-election rate is 80 percent (103 out of 128) since 1982. That’s bad news for the GOP’s Heller and Jeff Flake of Arizona.

Re-electing Heller and Flake should be a priority for Republicans because it will help the party gain seats. But Trump and his allies are more concerned with passing his legislative agenda now, and have threatened to run attack ads against certain Republican senators whom they view as obstacles.

While they might disagree on the tactics, GOP strategists agree that Republicans need to deliver on more legislative promises to avoid voter apathy next year. If Trump supporters blame congressional Republicans for blocking the president’s agenda, and don’t turn out to vote, it could cause a GOP catastrophe.

Even though a Democratic majority is unlikely (despite them only needing to gain three seats), it also shouldn’t be dismissed. Republicans faced a difficult map and a historically unpopular presidential nominee in 2016, yet the party limited its losses and held the majority.