Liberal super PAC launches $50 million social media campaign to win over rural voters in battleground states - Entrepreneur Generations

If you live in a swing state, you may see ads popping up in your Facebook feed trying to convince you to vote for a Democrat for president. That's because Democratic super PAC American Bridge has launched a $50 million initiative to try to sway rural voters away from Trump in 2020 with hyper-local social media ads, Alex Roarty reports for McClatchy.

"Already, officials with the group said they have raised $21 million for the effort while deploying staffers to three of presidential race’s most critical battlegrounds: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan," Roarty reports. "They plan to send staffers to another swing state, Florida, and said they have done extensive research on the most effective arguments to persuade rural voters."

Apparently, the most effective argument is one from a neighbor. The ads will feature personal testimonies from real voters, ideally white working-class ones, who share how they have been hurt by Trump's policies, Roarty reports. American Bridge deployed door-to-door canvassers this summer to find people for the ads who had stories that could resonate with other rural voters.

The ads seek to capitalize on polling American Bridge commissioned in June, which showed that Republican-leaning voters in small towns and rural areas of battleground states approved of Trump overall, but were much less approving on key issues such as health care and tax cuts. And 53% of those surveyed do not identify Trump as "honest and trustworthy," according to the polling.

American Bridge doesn't believe the effort will flip rural areas to a Democrat majority, but hopes to reduce support for Trump in the areas where he did best and it mattered most to the outcome of the election. Shripal Shah, vice president at American Bridge, told Roarty: "If we don’t cut these margins, we don’t win."

from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/30aF812 Liberal super PAC launches $50 million social media campaign to win over rural voters in battleground states - Entrepreneur Generations

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