How Democrats Are Using Ethnic Micro-Targeting To Win Pennsylvania

The data nerds are taking over the Harris campaign operation and I’m here for it.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

The race remains tight at the moment but I’m feeling more optimistic Post-debate. Polling numbers are rising, the base is consolidating and enthusiasm continues. I’m more bullish than a lot of other professionals about Harris odds and I think she can expand the map.

True, I have been on a crazed book signing tour and am getting very little sleep and am starting to see polling numbers in my dreams, so maybe I’m not as clear headed as others. You all know I’ve been bullish on North Carolina (lots more coming on this state soon) and if North Carolina goes blue a whole lot of interesting dynamics open up on the 270 electoral map.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. Let’s take the most conservative strategic path to victory and focus on Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania has gone Republican exactly one time since 1988 and that was when Trump pulled an inside straight in 2016.

Can he do it again? Sure.

Both campaigns have over a 90% chance of winning the race if they win the Keystone state. It’s that important to both parties. Moreover, its been the cause of some angst and concern as the polling has shown Trump and Harris evenly matched when most close poll watchers want to see a Democratic lean in the polls with Trumps tendency to overperform the polls in 2016 and 2020.

The William Penn statue looks over Philadelphia Photo by Dan Mall on Unsplash

Kamala Harris has already visited the state 6 times more in the past 6 weeks than Biden did in the past 6 months. She’s been there a total of 12 times this year. Can she win without it? Yes, very narrowly if she wins in North Carolina (but I digress again). As tight as the race is she does walk in with some significant advantages. According to AP “Overall, Harris’ team is on pace to outspend Republican Donald Trump’s campaign 2-to-1 in television advertising over the next two months. Even before Democratic President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign and made way for Harris, the Democrats wielded superior campaign infrastructure in battleground states.”

Harris has the tactical infrastructure advantage over Trump everywhere in the country but especially in Pennsylvania. But she’s also not just taking a shot-gun approach and trying to overwhelm Trump on the airwaves - though she’s clearly positioned to do that.

The Harris campaign is utilizing a surgically precise targeting of two key ethnic groups in Pennsylvania that I find particularly noteworthy. It’s smart and likely to be effective in getting her more votes out of these groups than would otherwise be the case.

Harris is looking at two key ethnic constituencies to be difference makers in the crucial state: Polish and Latino voters. And the campaign is employing some unique messaging and tactics to appeal to them.

CNN reports that there are more than a million Hispanic or Latino people living in the Commonwealth, according to recent census data. The Hispanic/Latino population has grown more than 40% in Pennsylvania since 2010. According to Pew Research Center, an estimated 615,000 Pennsylvania Latinos will be eligible to vote in November’s election - Latinos are 5% of the electorate in Pennsylvania.

In 2020, Biden beat Trump in Pennsylvania by roughly 80,000 votes.

According to an NBC exclusive reported on this Saturday “The Harris campaign is launching its largest effort yet to reach Latino voters — with new spending on Spanish-language radio and an organizing push around boxing matches and baseball games as National Hispanic Heritage Month kicks off this weekend.”

Now you all know how I feel about Spanish language mediums. They have extremely limited value for Democratic campaigns early in the cycle. Spanish speakers are overwhelmingly first generation immigrants among most of the country’s Latino voters who have naturalized making them a big 70%+ constituency for Democrats. Not a wise use of money early, in fact it’s extremely inefficient money.

But we’re not in the early stages of the race anymore. We’re getting to GOTV stage (Get Out The Vote) when you’re working to mobilize (not persuade) your strongest base of support - and for Democrats, that means Spanish speakers.

But most importantly as the really close followers of MikeDrop and this publication also know the Latino vote in Pennsylvania is the only swing state where the largest group of Latinos isn’t Mexican - it’s Puerto Rican. While 65% of Hispanics in the nation are of Mexican origin, only 16% of those in Pennsylvania are. The majority of Pennsylvanian Hispanics, 63%, are of Caribbean descent, particularly from Puerto Rico. Another 14% are South American.

I’m gonna state the obvious here because some may not have picked up on it - Puerto Ricans are American citizens. They’re not naturalized citizens - they’re natural born citizens and have the right to vote in Presidential contests on the mainland. This means a higher rate of Spanish speaking citizen eligible voters exist among Puerto Ricans because ALL Puerto Ricans are citizen eligible to vote and that makes Spanish language mediums far more effective with Puerto Ricans than any other Latino nationality.

With a median age of 34 years old, Pennsylvania Hispanic voters are much younger than their median average non-Hispanic counterparts, who average 52 years old. They also make much less than non-Hispanics ($49,509 vs. $88,712), they are more likely to have children (54% vs 31%) and they are more likely to rent their homes (59% vs. 25%).

Puerto Rican Flags Photo by Ricardo Dominguez on Unsplash

So Democrats have all of their campaign artillery firing: Spanish language ads, mobilization efforts and an aggressive bilingual phone bank operation.

These aren’t persuasion efforts - this is straight mobilization. All of these strategies are designed to try to get higher turnout levels of Spanish speaking voters.

Will they be successful? Yes. Democrats will get a higher raw turnout number of Latino voters. Likely the highest in history.

Will Latino turnout rates match those of Black and white voters? Unfortunately no.

What does this mean? Aren’t those contradictory statements? No, let me explain.

We are likely to see record high turnout levels in actual numbers of Latino voters from now through every election for the next twenty years. Why? The country’s demographics and electorate are changing rapidly and most of the change is happening with young Latinos turning 18 - a Latino turns 18 every 30 seconds in this country to be exact. That means through just natural growth we can expect a higher number of Latino voters every year.

However, the percentage of Latinos who are registered to vote compared to those who are eligible to vote is the lowest of any racial or ethnic group. Even worse, the turnout rate (those who actually vote) is lower than any other race or ethnic group.

So it’s entirely possible to set records of the actual numbers of Latinos who show up to vote while also having a lower percentage of Latinos who show up as a portion of the eligible voters in their community compared to other groups.

Bottom line: This is good news. The Harris campaign is using the right language, the right tactics and at the right time to increase the right Latino voter segments they need to show up and vote and help them win.

A smart balance of grinding down the data and building an effective tactical plan to hit the numbers they need.

Second group targeted by national origin? The Polish.

The Polish? Yep.

Now pull up a chair and lean in because I really love this strategy.

Just months after the Russian incursion into the Donbas region I went to Ukraine to meet with some of Zelensky’s key advisors and communications professionals involved in the war effort. We were arriving just after Nancy Pelosi left Kyiv as the first major American official to show up and support the Ukrainian war effort.

The airspace was shut down because of the war so the only way to enter Ukraine was by car. We landed in Krakow, Poland near the border with Ukraine and were met by a young Polish student in his early twenties. A bright memorable fellow who was very welcoming to us when we arrived, he was also anxious about the developments in the war. “We know our history. We know Russia’s history and unfortunately we know America’s history.” He was referring to our historical tendency not to intervene, then to do so with too little too late.

“Most of my family of that generation died in the war waiting for America to help,” he told us.

Polish memories run deep and span many generations. They also span the Atlantic Ocean. Every Polish immigrant of the past 70 years had family members perish at the hands of Russian or German soldiers. Much of Poland exists in what author Timothy Snyder called The Bloodlands. A book I highly recommend.

Trumps refusal to state that he wants a Ukrainian victory during the debate opened up a new lane for Harris in Pennsylvania. More than any other European country Poland knows its history. Russia’s aggression is more than a warning sign to Poland. It’s a screeching five alarm fire.

There are about 700,000 Polish Americans in Pennsylvania, making up about 5% of the population. I haven’t pulled the voter file data to see what they comprise in the electorate in the state but its likely in the 3-4% range of all voters - and it reportedly has broken slightly Republican in recent years.

According to The New York Times “Two other battleground states, Wisconsin and Michigan, also have large Polish populations, and more generally, the nation’s ethnic Polish population is still concentrated in the Northeast and Upper Midwest.

In Pennsylvania, the 2020 presidential race was decided by 80,555 votes, so Polish voters could prove decisive if they were to line up largely behind Mr. Trump or Ms. Harris in this November’s election.

More than 30 Pennsylvania counties have a significant Polish population, though the highest concentration is in the northeastern part of the state, the heart of the anthracite coal mining region. In Luzerne County, home to Wilkes-Barre, one in six residents identify as Polish, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.”

Harris campaign is using these powerful ads to target Polish voter ads online.

Latino voters will be 5% of the Pennsylvania vote and Polish voters will be 4%. Good smart ethnic microtargeted messages make all the sense in the world and could be the difference maker Harris needs to keep Pennsylvania blue in November.