If Haley manages to win or come close in Saturday’s South Carolina Republican February 24 Primary, it will be because of Democrats and Independents.
South Carolina has a wide-open primary. Regardless of party membership, anyone who did not vote in the February 4 Democratic primary (only 131,000 people) can vote. This leaves nearly 1 million people who voted for Biden in SC in 2020 with the ability to cast their ballot for Haley.
If just 15% of them chose to do so, Haley could pull a major upset, and win the state.
That’s why, for the past week, our new political action committee has been advertising this minute long Dems Vote Haley in SC to Beat Trump ad targeted to blue districts across the state. More than 320,000 views of at least 30 seconds have been seen by voting age South Carolinians.
SC adults in blue and swing districts have shown a significant appetite for our message. Our view rate – the percentage of people the video is shown to who watch it instead of click “Skip Ad,” – is 68%. This is very high, especially for a political ad. Even more telling is that more than half of everyone viewing the ad continues to watch the entire video.
At a cost of only $7,000, YouTube ads that explain an important value proposition while viewers are “leaning back” to watch other content is the best bang for a political buck.
We are still raising funding (secure Act Blue link here) and plan to continue running the ad until polling places close on Saturday.
We’re not the only Democratic committee with this strategy, although notably we are apparently the only one running digital video ads. Primary Pivot, a PAC from New Hampshire, is also focused on turning out liberals and independents to vote for Haley. Their strategy relies on more traditional get out the vote strategies, like text messaging.
Christopher Richardson, a South Carolina Democrat who plans to vote for Haley summed up the most compelling argument for crossing the party line on February 4 in a recent opinion piece published by the Hill. “It’s certainly my hope that Biden can beat either Haley or Trump in November, but both are currently beating Biden in most polling. A lot can improve between now and November to change that dynamic, but conversely a lot can get worse, too. Democracy should not be up for debate and certainly not for a gamble.
“So the question every Democrat must ask themselves is whom they would rather Biden lose to, rather than whom could Biden beat.”
Jonathan Greenberg, the owner of the Sonoma Independent and founder of our new PAC (where I am marketing director), elaborated on 7 Reasons Why Dems Voting Haley in Primary Would Help Biden Win here. In addition to distracting, enraging, and draining Trump’s campaign funding, Haley voters are being increasingly alienated from a November ticket by his sexist, cruel attacks on him. Meanwhile, her hard-hitting factual statements about him are piercing the Fox News GOP echo chamber that has amplified Trump’s lies for years.
SC Democrat Christopher Richardson described how high the stakes of the 2024 election are, “The central issue of 2024 is not abortion or gun control or immigration. The central issue is whether we will even have an election in 2028. Without democracy, there is no space to debate abortion, gun control, civil rights or education policies. Without democracy, might makes right and cults of personality reign.’”
