A New Ad Campaign Aimed At Wavering Rural Voters
Please, take a look at this video from a major Democratic campaign group, American Bridge 21st Century. According to the Associated Press, it’s part of a series of ads featuring testimonials from voters sharing their concerns about a second Trump term. This one started running Monday to help chip away at Trump’s rural base in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And they’re spending big: $25 million, part of a $140 million effort. That buys an immense amount of coverage in rural counties in those 3 states. Jill Colvin reported that the ads “are aimed at swing voters in smaller media markets that are less saturated with political advertising and where they hope to reach people, especially women, who may be on the fence.”
Aside from that abortion ad, they also have several up about access to health care and have future ads coming that focus on IVF, democracy and freedom. America Bridge co-founder Bradley Beychok: “People are afraid of Trump. And in some cases you have to remind them why… [S]ince Trump was elected in 2016, women have saved democracy election after election.” He said first-person testimonials are the most effective way to reach voters, given the electorate’s broad distrust of politicians.
These are some of the counties that are being saturated— along with Trump’s 2020 share of the vote:
Erie, PA- 48.6%
Cambria, PA- 68.0%
Blair, PA- 71.1%
Genessee, MI- 44.5%
Saginaw, MI- 49.1%
Bay, MI- 54.9%
Marathon, WI- 58.1%
Oneida, WI- 56.6%
Washington Post reporter Michael Scherer wrote the the first flight of ads will be on the air for 3 weeks targeting “about 2 million persuadable voters, including conservatives who are unhappy with Trump and people who dislike both major party nominees. The ads will also be running on radio and social media. They “mark the first major launch of the substantial independent firepower that has been amassed to help Biden this year. Future Forward, a larger outside group that coordinates with American Bridge, is expected to launch its own summer ad campaign in the coming months, after announcing a separate $250 million digital and television advertising campaign that will begin after the Democratic National Convention in August.”
Democrats are already dominating the spring presidential airwaves. Since his State of the Union address on March 7, Biden and the Democratic National Committee have spent $33 million on ads tracked by AdImpact, compared to just $7.9 million from MAGA Inc., a group supporting Trump, and no spending from Trump’s own operation. The Biden campaign announced last week that it would spend millions more this month.
…Trump is now campaigning on a platform of allowing states to decide individually how to handle the abortion issue. He has not called for new federal limits on abortion after a certain point of gestation, as some of his allies have requested.
Cecile Richards, the former president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America who is a co-chair of American Bridge, said the issue of abortion has clearly become a divisive one within Trump’s coalition since a 2022 Supreme Court ruling overturned the constitutional right to the procedure.
“The impact is being felt not as a theoretical matter but as a matter that is effecting huge numbers of women, their families and their spouses,” Richards said. “I think these ads do a very good job of saying why a vote for Donald Trump is dangerous for women everywhere.”
Hans Nichols and Alex Thompson wrote that “Biden’s campaign is investing in dozens of field offices in some of the nation's reddest counties, pressing its early money advantage to establish political beachheads in hostile territory… Biden's team isn't under the illusion it can win these rural counties… It's fighting to cut into Republicans' margins— particularly in swing states such as Wisconsin. The goal is to establish a ground presence early in the election cycle and keep rural Biden supporters motivated— while letting voters dismayed by Trump or curious about Biden know they're not be alone... In Wisconsin, Biden now has 46 offices across 42 counties, including 23 where Trump won by double digits in 2020… in places like Rusk County, home to about 14,000 people. Trump trounced Biden by 35% there four years ago, receiving 2,740 more votes. That's the kind of rural-county margin Biden is hoping to reduce at a time when polls have suggested that voter enthusiasm within Biden's base isn't as energized as it was in 2020, when he won Wisconsin by about 20,000 votes.”
“You lose a place by 25 instead of by 35, that can be really vital” in a close battle to win the overall vote in a state, said Dan Kanninen, the Biden campaign's battleground states director.
“If you're not cutting margins and competing in a bunch of other places that you might not normally win, it's death by a thousand cuts,” said Kanninen, referring to the 2016 election when Trump banked thousands of votes in smaller, more rural counties to offset Hillary Clinton's urban advantage.
… Biden was in Wisconsin's Racine County on Wednesday to tout a $3.3 billion investment by Microsoft on the same site where Trump planned for a Foxconn facility that never materialized.
Trump's team is behind in organizing state staffs, in part because his takeover of the Republican National Committee involved ousting many RNC staffers.
