Elections are decided by people who just started paying attention.
By: Antonia Scatton
Source Link: https://reframingamerica.substack.com/p/persuade
Recommended by: Bruce R.
Elections are decided by people who are only just starting to pay attention. What we say now is critical. We have to set the agenda, lead with data centers, frame corruption as the cause of economic distress, convince voters we will stand up to monopoly power, avoid getting lured into “safety net” debates, and hold Republicans accountable for the Epstein files, Iran, tariffs, and the high price of gas, diesel, fertilizer and food.
Keep persuading.
We must, of course, get out the vote. But, like Republicans do,we should fight for every last voter until the polls close.Many swing voters simply have not been paying attention until now. In 2024, we lost “people who do not closely follow the news” by 19 points. We are doing brilliantly in the polls. I do not want to see a five-point reversion to the norm when the votes get counted. What we say now is critical.
Keep up with changing voters.
The American voter is evolving faster than we can keep up. Candidates must be nimble. They can’t just fall back on “tried and true” speeches and messages that tested well in January. We need to adapt to spiking opposition to data centers and a huge shift from “affordability” to “corruption.” Here is exactly what we need to say and do to win these undecided voters and bring this election home in the final stretch.
Set the agenda.
Do NOT let Republicans set the terms of the debate. There is an astounding numberof issues to choose from, but these are the ones that voters care about the most and where we have the greatest strategic advantage:
1)Data Center / A.I. / Flock Cameras
2) Corruption / Broken Economic System
3) Gas and Food Prices
4) The War in Iran
5) The Epstein Files
All of these issues can be tied back to corruption. Corruption covers a lot of ground. You can get as local or as specific as you want, as long as you talk about it in terms of corruption.
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Five Key Strategies
1. Flip voters by talking about data centers.
Opposition to data centers and flock cameras has spiked in just the last few months, and continues to climb. People in the field and terrific rural candidates like Allie Wolf (MN house district 26B), tell me that they are regularly flipping hard-core Republican voters on opposition to data centers alone, even if there are no data centers planned in their area. Apparently, Big Tech (outside elites) colluding in secret with local government officials to green-light massive projects that dump the costs on local communities and also install surveillance cameras to watch their every move, really, really pisses people off.
Why does A.I. in general hit such a nerve in rural America? It re-opens old wounds about NAFTA, in which politicians made major decisions over the objections of working people, citing “experts” who claimed that everyone would benefit. Those decisions closed tens of thousands of factories, threw millions out of work, and destroyed small towns. Pushing recklessly ahead on a technology the purpose of which is to replace workers is bad enough in itself, but it also feels like NAFTA all over again.
Do this: In rural areas and when talking to Republican voters, start the conversation with data centers. In small towns, try dropping the NAFTA reference and watch the reaction. Use data centers and flock cameras to lead into a bigger conversation about corruption.
2. Make everything about corruption, and frame corruption as the cause of economic distress.
According to new research from Indivisible and Lake and Associates, 73% of battleground voters are more likely to support a candidate who fights to lower costs and takes on corruption and special interests, compared with just 5% who prefer a candidate focused solely on lowering costs.
Here is where voters have made the most radical change. Voters used to believe in the American Dream and blamed themselves when they could not make ends meet. Then they realized that, while they were holding up their end of the deal by working hard, our economic system was failing to deliver on the wages and economic security that they were promised. This betrayal made them absolutely f-ing furious. But – they did not stop there! They concluded that the whole system is broken because big money is influencing those in our government to rig the entire economic system on their behalf. Note that voters believe that both parties are culpable for this. Do not try to defend past behavior by Democrats, just don’t bring it up. Instead, show that we got there in the end!
How to know you are getting it right: Are you only talking about helping people pay for things? Or are you talking about the system being fundamentally broken and using government to make the economy work the way people were promised it would work? People do not just want handouts. They want fairness. Make EVERYTHING about corruption and economic fairness.
3. Convince Voters We Will Stand Up to Monopoly Power
If money buys political power, who is doing the buying? The “Bigs” as in Big Donors and Big Money: Big Tech, Big Ag, Big Oil, Big Pharma and Big Banks, as well as health insurance companies and private equity firms. Researchers have recently found that talking about “monopolies” tests better than terms like oligarchy or billionaires, and does not cause backlash. Everybody hates monopoly power.
Fighting monopoly power is directly related to reducing the cost of living. Companies used to have to compete for consumers by reducing prices, and compete for workers by raising wages. Now they can suppress wages and use A.I. to find our “pain points.” One example: Farmers and ranchers are being squeezed to death between supplier monopolies and buyer monopolies, who then gouge us at the grocery store.
What makes the term “monopoly” so effective is that most people in America have played the game of Monopoly at some point in their life. We know the point when one person pulls ahead, and all that’s left is for the winner to slowly bleed everyone else dry. That is how our economy feels right now. And voters are mad enough to flip over the game board.
In my focus groups this year, voters were very clear. They are sick and tired of listening to us fight with Republicans. They want to hear us fight for them. Josh Turek is not leading in Iowa because he has effectively attacked his opponent. It’s because he is taking “Big Ag” head on. Voters need to hear that we will stand up to monopoly power on their behalf.
Never debate anything Republicans actually want to talk about. It just allows them to expose more people to their attacks – creating neurological associations that are negative for us – and make the election about the issues where they are the strongest.
4. Don’t Take the “Safety-Net” Bait
When Trump makes gratuitous cuts to safety-net programs, we are tempted to jump all over it to point out their cruelty. Do not engage in any debate that involves a “safety-net” program. People perceive Democrats as being worse on the type of corruption they define as “wasting taxpayer money,” which is why our opponents are desperate to make this election about so-called wasteful spending, fraud and the “undeserving poor.” That whole debate lives in the past, where the economy does what it does, and we just argue over whether government should or should not clean up the damage after the fact.
Voters now overwhelmingly want government to intervene strongly to make markets work on our behalf, so that we don’t all end up needing safety nets. If you are only talking about helping people pay for things, voters think you either 1) don’t know that the entire economy is broken or 2) you do know, but lack the courage to stand up to Big Money. So don’t just talk about cuts to food stamps. Talk about forcing Amazon and Walmart to pay well enough that their employees don’t need food stamps. Don’t just talk about Obamacare subsidies. Make it clear that it’s time to kick greedy private health insurers out of the system altogether. Better yet, skip the “handout” part and go directly to “kicking private sector a**.”
Republicans would love for people to believe that all their economic woes are the result of high taxes caused by fraud in public aid programs. We need to make this election about: “Who will end the corruption? Who is more willing to stand up to monopoly power and make our economic system serve the needs of the American people.”
5. Hold Republicans Accountable for Trump’s Corruption
We need to make Republicans own Trump’s behavior. They are the ones on the ballot. Whatever Trump does, whether it is the Epstein files, Iran, tariffs, or the price of gas, diesel, fertilizer and food, we need to hold Republicans accountable for failing to use the power of Congress to stop him.
The War in Iran? It’s about corruption: Trump promised Big Oil favors in exchange for campaign donations, and now Big Oil is raking it in by screwing us at the pump. The Pentagon that can’t pass an audit yet wants another half trillion dollars to spend on fat military contracts for Big Tech firms and companies owned by Trump’s kids.
Trump’s $2.7 billion: It’s not just that Trump has increased his personal wealth. What governmental decisions did he sell to get that money and what price we are paying for those decisions? Which labor laws did he stop enforcing? Which child abusers and human traffickers is he protecting? Which anti-trust cases did he drop? Which fraud convictions did he pardon? Which food safety protections did he gut? Which national security secrets did he sell? Who paid Trump to kill the program to investigate and collect hundreds of billions of dollars in tax evasion by the rich, leaving the rest of us to pick up the tab? Who benefitted from Trump’s decisions to eliminate the programs that fight criminal money laundering and defend us against international cyber-attacks? And just who, in addition to himself, is he protecting in the Epstein files?
The key question for this election is: “Why did Republicans let Trump sell our government to the highest bidder for personal gain, costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars, putting us in danger and enabling child abuse and rampant white-collar crime? Perhaps because they are lining their pockets too and because they are afraid to stand up to Trump.
