How Democrats on the Frontlines Are Talking to Undecided Voters

Campaigns are about answering two questions: what do voters care about and how do you win their support?

The answers depend on which political strategist, pundit or activist you ask, but broadly speaking, two philosophical camps have emerged. There are those who believe that you should convince undecided likely voters to support your candidate by focusing on their favorite issues. And there are those who believe that you mobilize certain voters who are unlikely to vote, usually by promoting a comprehensive policy vision for the country.

Much Internet ink has been spilled in the war of Mobilization versus Persuasion. But one way to cut through the debate is to look at the candidates most in need of the right answer — incumbents running tight re-election campaigns.

Today I look at incumbent Democrats and the types of messages they’re using to keep their jobs. Team Mobilization argues that these candidates should focus on bold policy promises, like free public education and a Green New Deal, to build a new coalition of voters. Or, as Bernie Sanders puts it in his book recent opinion piece with a somewhat humorous title“The ‘far-left agenda’ is exactly what most Americans want.” But is that exactly what most Americans want? I think these incumbent swing race Democrats probably have a good idea. So let’s dig into their campaign message and see what they have to say.

There are 24 Democratic incumbents running this cycle in races that the Cook Political Report defines as either “toss-up” or “leaning Democratic.” Nineteen are in the House of Representatives and five are in the Senate.

I watched all of their TV and digital ads, and I read all of the policy sections of their website, but to get a better sense of the most common keywords and phrases, I plugged the language from their ads into a word cloud generator. If the candidate had only one or no ads, I grabbed the language from the key issues section of their website to make up the difference. Granted, my methodology probably wouldn’t qualify this article for a top political science journal, but it does give us a general idea of the messages these candidates are focusing on.

What is the main conclusion? It’s still the economy, idiot.

Abortion rights, border security, and supporting veterans are undeniably core issues, but the ultimate focus is on the cost of living. What’s particularly interesting is how incumbents are emphasizing their health care policies as a solution to economic problems, positioning their work to cap prescription drug prices, and defending Medicare as the key to addressing the broader cost of living crisis. There’s been a lot of talk about 2024 as the year “democracy is on the ballot,” but listening to these candidates, it sounds more like 2024 is the year affordable insulin is on the ballot.

It’s a strategically sound move. As Matt wrote in October, Democrats should really talk more about health carebecause they have a superior policy agenda and they enjoy much more trust from voters on this issue. The reality is that these incumbents governed during a period of high inflation, and policies aimed at lowering prescription drug prices are among the most tangible cost-saving policies they can point to.

Of course, incumbents can’t win on health care alone. These candidates also try to win over voters by playing the economic populist punchlines: high prices and corporate greed. Here are some examples of those health care and populist economic messages in action:

Rep. Matt Cartwright represents a suburban and rural district in Pennsylvania that voted for Trump twice. And he is place an ad who says, “People are suffering. That’s why I fought to cap insulin at $35, along with co-pays for seniors’ prescription drugs. I will fight and stand up to Wall Street and the greedy corporations that are ripping us off.”
Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez represents a predominantly rural Washington district that also voted for Trump twice. She has a message sue companies because they had too much control over Americans’ lives.
Nevada Senator Jacky Rosen’s campaign is place an ad who plays news stories that say, “She took on big pharma and won. Senator Jacky Rosen today announced a cap on prescription drug costs, giving Medicare the power to negotiate lower prices.”

Is this persuasion or mobilization? Floating voters can be strange and they often have a variety of idiosyncratic positions that do not fit the traditional left-right divide. But in generalthey identify as moderate or conservative far more often than they identify as liberal. And the fact is, none of these candidates are proposing left-wing policies that will dramatically restructure the American economy. Cutting prescription drug costs, protecting abortion rights, and even more left-wing rhetoric about corporations are all forms of popularism — the idea that the best way to win elections is to focus on policies that get the most traction. At its core, that’s a strategy designed to win over moderate or even Republican voters, rather than mobilize a far-left coalition.

Popularity is the best campaign ingredient, but it still needs some seasoning. As we saw with the Biden/Harris trade-off, a candidate can gain more support simply by being more energetic and charismatic while still maintaining the same substantive policies. So it’s important to recognize that many of these candidates’ messages are centered on their backgrounds and personalities. When NBC Politics beat me to it earlier this week by comparison of ads that appeared in 40 Republican and Democratic House electionsthey found that the candidate’s ‘biography’ was the most important overall message.

It’s worth discussing how these incumbent Democrats treat the opposition. On issues like abortion, Social Security, and Medicare, their Republican opponents are often portrayed as the bad guys. A good example is an ad by Senator Jon Tester of Montana, in which Voters supporting Tester emphasize his opponent’s position positions against abortion rights and in favor of privatizing Medicare.

When they talk about Republicans as a party, however, the connotation is much more positive. The GOP, and sometimes even Donald Trump’s candidacy, is not portrayed as an apocalyptic threat to the world order, and the fate of our democracy is not at stake. In fact, working with Republicans is generally seen as a virtuous act that voters should be aware of. This is especially true when it comes to border issues. While these incumbents do not engage in extremist rhetoric around mass deportations, they do leverage their cooperation with Republicans on border security issues:

Representative Yadira Caraveo of Colorado is the incumbent in a district that votes nearly identically to the national electorate and is nearly 40 percent Hispanic. highlights how “she broke with party leaders to support tougher penalties for fentanyl-related offenses, worked with Republicans to pass a law funding 22,000 Border Patrol agents, and spearheaded bipartisan bills to crack down on cartels, combat human trafficking, and provide a path to citizenship for law-abiding immigrants.”
To win PA-07, a district that has voted for the presidential election winner in the past four elections, Rep. Susan Wild must a Republican deployed deputy to say she is “bipartisan and independent.”
Jared Golden is going even further in Maine’s rural 2nd district. He has an advertisement which states: “Now I’m fighting Biden’s electric car mandate while voting to increase domestic oil and gas production” and “working with Republicans to secure the border and standing with law enforcement to oppose defunding the police.”

I found several candidates using Republican surrogates in their ads; that’s persuasion in its purest form, because it means their path to victory must include the support of voters who might also vote for Trump. While it’s probably not something these campaigns would readily admit, they seem to assume they can take the Democratic base for granted. Pleasing more people on the left isn’t worth the risk of losing compelling independents or Republicans.

While it is important to understand what these incumbents are saying in their ads, it is perhaps equally important to discuss what they are saying. are not saying, and why. Student loan forgiveness, democracy, and the Biden administration’s $2 trillion initiative to address climate change are all topics that weren’t mentioned enough to qualify for the word cloud. Even the (popular) bipartisan infrastructure bill rarely gets a mention.

Many of these candidates are functionally moderate, so it makes sense that some of these issues would be left out of their coverage. Other candidates, however, are even further to the left on certain issues, it’s just not emphasized in their ads. For example, Matt Cartwright, the Pennsylvania representative I discussed above, is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and has previously voiced support for Medicare For All. But you wouldn’t know it from looking at his paid media. His health care policy focuses on reproductive rights and limiting co-pays for seniors. He boasts that he has “introduced more bills with Democratic and Republican support than any other Democrat in the House of Representatives.”

Sherrod Brown is another interesting example. Just two years ago he was one of the leaders of the call for President Biden to forgive student debt. As a Democratic senator from a red state, his vote on the issue carried extra weight. Now, his 2024 reelection campaign is in full swing, and he hasn’t mentioned that victory in any of his television ads. A few years ago, Brown also spoke favorably of the Green New Deal and supported Biden’s pause on LNG exports. But he’s recently broken with Democrats on EV policy and energy efficiency regulations, prompting Politico to publish an article titled, “A new Sherrod Brown? A Democrat committed to the climate agenda.“

A cynic might call this flip-flopping, but a political realist would say it’s more of a strategic de-emphasis, an understanding that the majority of voters Brown needs to win have not benefited from student loan forgiveness and do not support a rapid transition to renewable energy. Brown has a long history of supporting progressive causes, but here he’s reckoning with the political reality that it’s more profitable to win over swing voters in Ohio than it is to mobilize progressives in Ohio.

Is it enough to win on Election Day? We’ll know in a few months. How will Republicans respond? We’ll know next week, when we dig into the messages they’re using in their ad campaigns.

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