GOP to launch own Web domain

The Republican Party in the United States is planning to have its own Web address ending by the end of February.

The GOP digital campaigning strategy will let individuals register for websites with a .gop suffix instead of usual domain names.

“You’ll see committees, organizations, grass-roots and state committees using this ending,” Will Martinez, vice president of sales and marketing for .gop, as reported by USA Today. “Hopefully in the lead-up to 2016 elections you’ll see the presidential primary playing out on .gop.”

Republicans hope that the new domain will help increase the party’s online brand for upcoming election cycles.

“The goal here is to really make investments and be on top of all of the newest in technology to compete with the Democrats and move up ahead of them,” Republican National Committee Press Secretary Kirsten Kukowski said.

New Republican websites may include convention.gop, poll.gop, news.gop and register.gop, USA Today said.

In 2012, President Obama’s re-election campaign invested twice as much as the Romney campaign in online advertising.

The Democratic campaign raised $504 million in online donations in 2012, but the Democratic Party does not appear to be planning for a domain now.

Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign manager Jim Messina said on Wednesday that he was “pissed” that the Democrats have not created their own Web ending. “It’s just another thing in the toolbox to use to reach out to folks,” Messina said. “As a campaign manager, all you want is more tools, and I think this is a really interesting one.”

However, DNC press secretary Michael Czin said, “It’s not a strategy, it’s not a solution to a problem.”

“Republicans didn’t lose in 2008 or 2012 because people couldn’t find their websites. To the contrary it’s because people could figure out what they were campaigning on,” Czin said.

The.gop domain is expected to be approved next week, and the first sites could go live by the end of the month, according to USA Today.