FOR MOVEON MEMBERS ONLY
TO: Andra, MoveOn Member
FROM: MoveOn's Election Team
RE: MoveOn Election Plan Update: Reaching Hard-to-Reach Voters
While we know the people we need to turn out in November to defeat Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans, we face new challenges reaching our target voters this year, given changes in media consumption.
As a result, MoveOn plans to deploy new strategies to reach our target voters that build on our grassroots base and success in previous election cycles. This memo focuses on member testimonial videos.
An article in The New York Times earlier this year—titled "Do Political Ads Even Matter Anymore?"—captured recent data showing that traditional political TV ads are reaching vastly fewer people, as viewers switch to streaming and social media.1 Also, Gallup polling shows that trust in the media has reached a historic low.2
In 2018, MoveOn's Real Voter Voices project collected 2,000 short, unscripted, from-the-heart videos from MoveOn members about why the election mattered to them and why they were voting. Our data analysts then used sophisticated algorithms to show each video to the voters who were most likely to be persuaded by it to turn out to vote. Independent analyses showed that the videos moved tens of thousands of votes in key battleground races.
This year, MoveOn will build on that success. We will collect thousands of testimonial videos from MoveOn members speaking authentically about the stakes of the 2024 election, why they are voting, and candidates they are supporting. That means: real people, neighbors, and community members—not paid actors or slick, high-priced commercial ads.
We'll rigorously test the videos to find the ones that are most effective at helping convince people to vote, and show them to targeted voters on streaming and social media platforms.
As with all of MoveOn's work, this will be funded with grassroots donations from across the country.
Andra, we can run this project only with your support. Will you donate $5 a month to help enable us to collect, test, and show the most effective videos to target voters in battleground states and districts from now through Election Day?
No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.
The voters MoveOn is focused on this election year are younger, diverse, "surge" voters—including those who became more active after Trump won in 2016 but do not consistently vote, along with young and newly eligible voters. Our plan is to persuade them to come out to vote this year in support of the issues they care about.
These younger audiences do not watch broadcast TV; they watch ad-supported streaming services. They are most likely to get their news from TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and other social media platforms—not from their local newspaper or cable news outlet.3
We have to reach these voters where they are and with messengers who reflect their experiences and values in life. We know that these voters, who are often ignored by the political establishment, are apt to connect with and trust people who are their peers.
That's where MoveOn's member video testimonials project comes in.
Changes in the media landscape, including the move from TV to streaming platforms, the rise of vertical videos across social media platforms, and the focus on individual storytellers in social media algorithms, suggest that this project could have even more of an impact this year than in 2018.
An initial proof-of-concept test earlier this year found that all three videos tested were persuasive, particularly with voters who skipped the 2022 election, a key subset of our target voters who will be critical to winning this November.
With support from you, Andra, and thousands of MoveOn members across the country, we can run this video project at scale, sharing personal testimonials and stories that break through, connect with people, and help persuade them to vote. Our voter turnout team will then swing into action this fall to turn those voters out to the polls.
But we can do this critical work only with your support. Will you donate $5 a month to help MoveOn collect, test, and show the most effective videos to target voters in battlegrounds states and districts? Your ongoing donation will power and sustain our effort between now and Election Day.
No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.
Thanks for all you do.
–MoveOn's Election Team
Sources:
1. "Do Political Ads Even Matter Anymore?" The New York Times, January 17, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/193150?t=6&akid=388545%2E53570607%2E8ltH-D
2. "Americans' trust in media plummets to historic low: poll," Axios, October 24, 2023
https://act.moveon.org/go/189017?t=8&akid=388545%2E53570607%2E8ltH-D
3. "Younger viewers shun traditional TV channels as 90% opt for streaming services," The Guardian, August 17, 2022
https://act.moveon.org/go/193151?t=10&akid=388545%2E53570607%2E8ltH-D
Want to support MoveOn's work? The MAGA movement's book bans have forced teachers and librarians across the country to remove books from their shelves and censor what young people can learn. MoveOn is fighting back, including by filling a "Banned Bookmobile" with books that the far right has banned and driving it to key cities and towns to raise the visibility of book bans, hand out banned books for free, and bring people together to stop censorship. To keep up the fight against book bans and the MAGA politicians who support them, we need your help.
Will you start a monthly gift to power and sustain MoveOn's critical work?
No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.
PAID FOR BY MOVEON POLITICAL ACTION, https://pol.moveon.org/. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. MoveOn Political Action - PO Box 96142, Washington, D.C. 20090-6142.
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