Campaigning doesn’t necessarily mean “converting Trump voters to Biden voters.” In fact, in this election it probably doesn’t mean that at all.
I think Biden campaigning to, say, increase Democratic turnout is worth the effort. He doesn’t need Republican voters to have political epiphanies. Rather, Biden needs a proportionally small number of well-placed hardly-ever voters to decide, at last, to make voting a personal priority.
Or, equivalently, a number of formerly-enthusiastic Trump voters to throw their hands in the air and decide that there’s nothing they can do. That works, too.
Those ads weren’t shown to swing/uncertain voter focus groups. From your POLITICO link:
In late September, a conservative group opposing Donald Trump quietly tested four TV ads that aimed to weaken the former president by focusing on a central issue of the campaign: His myriad legal troubles.
One spot, which was surveyed before an online panel of Republican primary voters, declared that the indictments against Trump had “worn” him “down” and undercut his ability to win the election. Another said the trials presented “too much baggage” and warned that Democrats would “sensationalize” them to hurt the ex-president. The hardest-hitting commercial raised the specter that Trump would be convicted, leading President Joe Biden to “cruise” to reelection.
All of the ads shared one thing in common beyond the topic on which they focused. They all failed or backfired.
Three of the four actually boosted Trump’s support among the participants. One — a softer-touch spot that features a voter saying Trump’s trials “worries” him — had no measurable impact on Trump’s numbers. The unaired ads, along with nearly 260 pages of accompanying data analysis, were obtained by POLITICO.
Something else: That Republican-voter focus group was shown these ads nearly seven months ago. The POLITICO piece cited was published November 3rd of last year. I would bet the same ads could be tweaked in a month or two to reflect actual happenings with the Alvin Bragg trial … and such ads COULD be impactful with groups outside of staunch Republican voters. Again, such ads could be used to rouse usual non-voters off of their couches.
Lotta good thoughts upthread. I agree with hitting abortion, Supremes, and Trump - his legal problems AND his desire to be dictator for a day. Concentrate in the 6-7 swing states, and others w/ important down ticket raced and/or abortion referenda.
My question is “When?” November still seems a long way away. I say hold of until a month or so before the first early voting starts. Don’t fatigue fence-sitters.
Local Democratic Party organizations should, can and will encourage early/mail voting by contacting registered Democrats. This addresses risk of losing votes due to bad weather, family emergencies, and illness. However, Joe Biden, or his advertising, doing it will backfire by suggesting it to Republicans at a time when Republican turnout is more elastic than Democratic turnout.
Consider this from 538:
I’ve been saying the Democrats need to go on the offensive with this - some well-placed and clever ads to put out there that voting in fraud elections is a waste of time, and only gives power to the Deep State. Better to sit this one out and not get pwned by the evul Demoncrats again! Hey, it worked for Trump in Georgia!
Another thought is that Trump is doing nothing at all to try and convince anyone to vote for him, other than the adoring MAGAts. He’s actively pushing aside traditional Republicans and has made no overtures at all to any fence-sitting Democrats or undecideds. This is another opportunity for Biden to address directly some of the this cohort, and maybe even some Republicans fed-up with the Trump BS - especially in those key purple states.
I think this is mistaken.
He is running away from his party on abortion:
Trump declines to endorse a national abortion ban. He says limits should be left to the states
And he has repeatedly made statements on Gaza allowing voters who want to punish Biden, on that issue, to imagine Trump would be more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. This is the latest:
Donald Trump appears to endorse pro-Palestine ‘genocide Joe’ chant at rally: ‘They’re not wrong’
Trump tries to convince median voters that he agrees with them even when it is not true. Biden cannot adopt more popular views that way because he is a man of integrity who says what he believes. And even if I’m a bit too generous to Joe in my last sentence, Biden needs to keep his aura of integrity to win.
To be clear, you’re suggesting that the Democrats shouldn’t adopt good political tactics, for fear that the Republicans might get the idea to do the same.
…which they will do because they like taking advice from Joe Biden. I don’t really think this is going to be a problem. Dems were encouraging early voting in 2020, and the effect was to make Republicans less likely to vote early. Which makes no rational sense, but Republicans.
That’s not what I meant to say.
I was discussing tactics, pleasing to the Democratic base, but liable to backfire in November per focus group evidence. In other words – bad political tactics.
I’m not sure what Republicans who “might get the idea” you are referring to. If Republican campaign managers, they get their ideas independently.
Some of the ideas in this thread would be good when addressing committed Democrats sure to vote but vacillating on whether to make a campaign contribution. Biden’s funding raising is doing too well for him to tailor messages to that group.
He needs to print out stickers saying, “Putin did that.” And pay people to slap it on all the gas pumps.
Ideally, he’d be able to get some economic talking heads out there, talking up inflation as being partially caused by Trump’s tariffs. Likewise the drop in exports, bringing in less money from abroad to counter inflation.
He needs to sell an economic vision for how to get back to the American dream, where everyone can own their own home, and that vision needs to sound like a real plan, not just some puffery.
He needs to generate the concept of the New Cold War between the orders of law and peace, or might-makes-right and neverending war.
He needs to articulate a reasonable but hard line on Israeli support: Back them where it makes sense. Fight them where it makes sense. It shouldn’t be all or nothing and it shouldn’t be unclear to the average person why we’re supporting them. And it shouldn’t disagree with the average person’s sense of right and wrong, when we say why we’re supporting them, if we are.
I understand what you and LSLGuy are getting at about Florida. Maybe the abortion amendment can make a difference but I haven’t seen anything to make me be hopeful. Plus, as I remember it, HRC made a big push in 2016 in Florida and pretty much ignored Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Those states are crucial must wins for Biden and any strategy to prioritize Florida over those states or even Arizona, Nevada and Georgia is a losing strategy in my opinion. After all, Florida elected DeSantis twice so I don’t know how much I would count on likely Democrat voters turning out this time around.
Florida elected DeSantis twice in the absence of any plausible Democrat for governor on either ballot. Maybe if the Florida Dems didn’t concede the governorship they’d have more success at turning out the presidential vote.
I’m not going to get into a hijack about recent FL gubernatorial elections but I will say I disagree with the idea the D’s have conceded the office. If you want to discuss it further we can do so in another thread.
What I will say that is on topic is this - PA, MI and WI must be the priority for the Biden campaign. AZ, NV and GA are also worth a strong effort. NC is even a possible flip but FL is definitely well after all of those states for spending time and money as far as I’m concerned. Hopefully the Biden campaign understands this.
Abortion rights have been upheld by voters in Kansas, Ohio, Kentucky and Montana since Roe was overturned. That’s great but I doubt it is enough for the Biden campaign to make those states their primary focus in 2024. Florida is a similar situation.
I certainly agree with you that Biden shouldn’t abandon PA, MI and WI in favor of campaigning in Florida. I just think that its worth spending a little time and money there to see if he can make any headway. If the abortion amendment wasn’t on the ballot, and a 6 week ban wasn’t going into effect, I think spending any time or money there would have been a waste of time. I just think there may be a narrow window of opportunity that is worth exploring. Not trying because it might be unsuccessful is a self-fulfilling prophecy. As an added benefit, it will force the republicans to spend time and money on what should be a safe state.
Biden went on the attack in Arizona. This is just the first report in a long list of reports.
I watched one of the ads on the news. VERY effective if one was a woman who cares about reproductive rights. There wasn’t any hedging, Trump caused the extreme abortion ban in Arizona and women are going to die because of it.
Biden’s making a play for (or at least an appearance in) Florida. Here’s hoping the antipathy for DeSantis and abortion gives him a boost.
Obama got over 50% of the popular vote in Florida twice, and that wasn’t in the Pleistocene Era. And Democratic Presidential candidates have regularly broken 47% in that state since 1992. Maybe it’s not completely crazy, but Trump support would need to slip considerably – down something like four or five percentage points from the 51.22% of the Florida popular vote Trump received in 2020.
It’s also not like Biden is going to have to choose between campaigning in the “blue wall” states and campaigning in Florida. He’s going to have a truly stupendous amount of campaign funds, and there’s only so much you can usefully spend on advertising in the Scranton and Eau Claire media markets.
Biden should stay away from Trump’s legal issues. Its not going to change the minds of Trump supporters. It’s not going to change the minds of Biden supporters. Whether or not you want to believe it there are a lot of people who don’t closely follow politics but have a healthy but not paranoid distrust of the government. Their votes also count and you don’t want them voting for Trump. Trump is pushing that the charges against him are politically motivated. Biden trying to cash in politically on those charges will make it look like Trump is right. Let the juries do the talking. Also if the trials end in acquittal or a hung jury it will blow up in Biden’s face. He should stay neutral and as far away from the court cases as possible.
We know Trump himself is going to say stupid and unpredictable things. His ads are going to be clear and concise. They will be hitting two things hard. The first is immigration and border control. Polls are showing across the board it’s a big concern with voters. Republicans are winning the propaganda war. Hammer the fact that Trump personally stopped anything from going through Congress to help. Show where and how Biden used executive power to help the situation.
The second big thing is much trickier. It’s the old “Are you better off now” thing. I don’t know if anyone talks to real people but very few that I know think they are better off now. Prices are still way up but wages aren’t. People have less money. Housing is an issue. Gasoline is an issue. Food is an issue. That’s the burden of an incumbent unless the economy is great across the board. It’s not possible to give meaningful economic lessons in a 30 second spot about what a president can and cannot control. People don’t want to hear about how strong the overall economy is if it hasn’t trickled down to them. I don’t know what the answer is.