Messages Need Messengers. Democrats' Messaging Problem, and How We Fix It.

Information silos, local news, and how we break through.

Her name was Vivian, and she was the only Democrat in her entire county.

At least, that’s what she believed until her local Democratic state senate nominee told Vivian that there had to be at least 299 more Democrats. After all, the nominee had gotten 300 votes from that county in the Democratic primary.

And just like that, a woman who thought she was a little blue island in the middle of an entire red county in middle Tennessee learned she wasn’t alone.

When I heard that story, I wasn’t sure whether I should be inspired or depressed. Maybe you feel the same way. The fact is, there are people all over in red states and red districts that feel just like Vivian – lonely blue dots in a sea of red neighbors.

All too often in red districts like Vivian’s, and in red states generally, Democratic voters stay home because they think there’s no use in voting in their uber gerrymandered district. Meanwhile, persuadable folks don’t realize that Democrats stand for things they agree with.

Ask me how I know.

Image credit: Jess Piper, @piper4missouri

It’s a puzzling thing that happens in Red State elections. Progressive policy issues pass with wide margins in the same election that Republicans sweep statewide offices and secure state legislative supermajorities.

In Missouri we’ve defeated Right to Work, and passed progressive ballot measures like recreational marijuana and Medicaid expansion. But Republicans occupy every statewide office. And the worst performing of those Republicans won with 57% of the vote.

Missouri isn’t unique. Earlier this year, the Rural Democracy Initiative polled rural voters in 10 states (AZ, GA, MI, MN, MT, NH, NC, OH, PA, and WI). They found that rural voters often associate popular Democratic policies with Republicans. When asked who was more focused on tax fairness, protecting Medicare/Social Security, and supporting abortion rights, nearly 2 in 5 rural voters said it sounded more like Republicans.

It begs the question: why? Why don’t people understand that Democrats’ policy positions align with theirs? Why do people vote for progressive policies and the Republicans that will undo those very same progressive measures?

How are they not getting the message?

There are plenty of potential answers. But the most accurate might be the most simple and most obvious: Democrats just haven’t shown up.

If messages need messengers, who’s sharing the Democratic message in these communities?

Too often, the answer is nobody.

According to Pew Research, U.S. adults most commonly get their local political news from friends, family, and neighbors (70%), local news outlets (66%) and social media (54%). Thirty percent get their local political news from local politicians. (Stick a pin in that one.)

That people get a lot of their local news from friends/family and social media isn’t all that surprising – we see that self-sustaining feedback loop every day. It’s why efforts to influence social media narratives (like Scott Dworkin’s) are important, as are the motives of social media companies like Twitter that have changed policies and algorithms in ways that appear intended to stifle Democrats.

These “information silos” are real. But information has to get fed into the silos somehow.

And that’s often the job of local news, which gets high marks from both Democrats and Republicans, who generally believe their local news reports the news accurately and covers the most important stories. Basically, folks trust their local stations to be honest brokers about what’s going on in their community.

But, at least in big chunks of America, there’s a problem with that assumption: Sinclair Broadcasting owns, operates, or provides services to 185 stations in 86 markets – about 20% of which are in the swing states of GA, MI, WI, NC and PA. It’s estimated that Sinclair reaches about 40% of American households.

Sinclair Broadcasting was founded in the 1970s by Julian Sinclair Smith, the father of current owner David Smith. Initially simply a family-run television station, it wasn’t until the 1990s that, under David’s leadership, Sinclair started buying up other stations and dramatically expanding Sinclair’s reach.

And that’s where Smith’s expansion efforts suggest he’s had a long-term strategy.

David Smith hasn’t done much to hide his partisan leanings and his preference for Donald Trump. Political donations from the Smith family’s foundation include more than half a million dollars to Project Veritas and $121,000 to Moms for America (an activist group that promotes book bans). During the 2016 campaign he reportedly told Trump that “We are here to deliver your message. Period.”

Every year, Sinclair conducts a viewer survey to guide their programming for the next year. According to Smith, the most important question in the survey is “What are you most afraid of?”. It’s not hard to see how the resulting editorial focus amounts to fear-mongering – which in practice often reinforces the MAGA narrative that America’s cities are falling apart.

While located all over the country, at least one former news director claimed that Smith “purposely went in and bought a whole bunch of stations in mid-America—i.e., Trump kinds of towns. Places where they could have a big influence. … The bottom line is, they hatched a plan to have an effect on the majority of this country.”

By many accounts, Sinclair has achieved the desired effect.

Image credit: https://sbgi.net/tv-stations/

Multiple academic studies of the impact of Sinclair’s purchase of stations reveal the “Sinclair effect” – a significant and measurable rightward shift in content. And at least one study predicted the rightward lurch of the community’s “news diet” to impact election outcomes and promote mass polarization.

A former Sinclair news director was positive that “the right-wing commentaries, in small markets, had an effect on the [2016] election.” The data seems to bear that out, too. In 2016, “voters in areas with a high concentration of Sinclair stations chose Trump over Hillary Clinton by an average of nineteen points.”

The lopsided coverage was evident in battleground Michigan, where Sinclair owned or operated at least five stations that appeared to be competitors, but were all Sinclair assets. A single reporter covered the 2016 presidential race for all of them. The Access Hollywood tape was “barely mentioned” in their election coverage.

Donald Trump won Michigan by 10,704 votes.

You no doubt recall that in 2018, Sinclair was widely condemned for requiring its newscasters across the country to repeat a statement verbatim. The mash-up of local reporters reading from the same script was chilling and Orwellian.

But it’s not the last time Sinclair has required local stations to repeat “must broadcast” coverage. Earlier this summer, the Wall Street Journal published an article calling Joe Biden’s mental state into question. While that article was widely criticized for relying on anonymous Republican sources, local Sinclair affiliates pushed out a recorded story dedicated to that WSJ piece, and to Biden’s mental fitness. The introduction was nearly identical, and referenced the national correspondent’s comment that Biden’s mental state would be an “election decider.” (Check out this Popular Information supercut of the videos.)

And just like that, narratives about Joe Biden’s mental acuity were injected directly into the local news information stream, where they could be repeated ad nauseam.

As MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace said, “Who needs state TV, right?”

But local news and social media aren’t the only places people get their information.

According to Pew Research, 30% generally and 39% of Americans 65+ get their news from local politicians. Unfortunately, in red America, that’s another problem for Democrats because local politicians in red districts are, by and large, Republicans. And as you can imagine, they’re not sharing the facts objectively. Often, they’re not sharing facts at all.

Recently in Missouri, state senator Mike Moon sent an email to his constituents claiming that the passage of Amendment 3, which will enshrine reproductive freedom into the state constitution, would cause an increase in human trafficking (false) and allow school nurses to perform abortions in schools (false). He claimed the Amendment would allow the “evil practices” of puberty blockers and gender transition surgeries to be used without parental consent (false). He claimed there would be no medical standards for abortion (false).

His email was shared widely among the church community, including among pastors. He openly encouraged sharing, especially within the faith community, saying that in the last election 36 million Christians didn’t vote – which he attributed to “the confusion caused by candidates who purposely spout lies.”

“I’ll do my best to help you understand Amendment 3,” he said, immediately before launching into his misrepresentations.

That’s a Republican state senator, sending rank disinformation directly to his constituents, and invoking religion.

But there’s a method to his madness.

Did I mention that the RDI poll found that 8% of rural respondents got their local news from church?

It’s a frustrating reality that the MAGA messaging in red states starts with the Fox News that’s blaring in the McDonalds, is reinforced by the local Sinclair-owned TV station, is continued in the local morning AM Talk Radio banter that regurgitates Fox talking points, is supported by the local politicians’ constituent newsletter, and is driven home by preachers in the pulpit who are actively disseminating disinformation.

Confronted with that reality, the million-dollar question is: what on earth can Democrats do about it? How can Democrats break through that noise?

The answer is both simple and hard.

We show up.

If we want to spread a Democratic message, we need the messengers to do it. While it’s encouraging that the Harris campaign has a new focus on pushing into rural America, we can’t rely upon national Democrats to shoulder all of the work. Local political candidates can drive, or at least influence, local conversations.

But far too often, local Democratic offices are left uncontested or under-supported. In 2022, Democrats left 45 of Tennessee’s 99 state house districts completely uncontested. In Missouri it was 66 of 163. In Mississippi’s 2023 elections, Democrats left 56% of the races uncontested. The same was true in Louisiana, where Democrats failed to contest 59 state house seats out of 105. In Arkansas, 52 of 99 state house seats were uncontested. In Alabama it was 58 of 105.

I could go on, and on, and on.

It’s not just the states, either. On the congressional side, 23 congressional races were completely uncontested by Democrats in 2022. Another 126 were underfunded, averaging just $62,386 to campaign in a district of 762,000 people.

Leaving these districts uncontested isn’t just hurting us electorally.

It’s hurting our ability to break through a very powerful right-wing messaging ecosystem to influence local conversations.

A Democratic party chair once equated leaving state legislative seats uncontested to leaving dozens of microphones, completely unused, all over the state. He was spot on.

And those messaging opportunities are the very kinds of opportunities we can’t afford to lose.

Remember Vivian – the red-district Democrat in Tennessee who thought she was all alone? It was a local state senate nominee who assured her that she was one of hundreds of known Democrats in the area (there are certainly more).

In Missouri, local state legislative nominees are sharing critical – accurate – information with potential constituents about Amendment 3, about Project 2025, and about the Harris/Walz ticket.

In Ohio, local state legislative nominees are pushing back against JD Vance’s lies about Haitian immigrants in Springfield. They’re sharing information about the gerrymandering ballot measure Citizens Not Politicians, that would restore the power to the voters.

They’re organizing their neighbors, informing, educating, and rebuilding infrastructure in traditionally red spaces.

So while Democrats can’t control what’s on the Sinclair station, or what’s on Fox News, or what’s shouted from the pulpit – we can still help push a Democratic message into these communities by running and supporting local state legislative candidates.

After all, messages need messengers. Luckily, we already have those messengers – all over the country, on the ground, right this very second.

We just need to support them, encourage them, and cheer them on.

Let’s get to work.

Image credit: Robert Linder, Unsplash

Actions for the Week of September 17, 2024

Here’s the part where – if you are so inclined – we roll up our sleeves and engage in what I like to call Action Therapy. Each Tuesday I share a few “small things” – usually a Small Thing to Read, a Small Event to Attend, and a Small Call to Make or Action to Take. You can tuck these actions into your week with ease – and know that you’re doing something today to make tomorrow better.

Of course, if after reading this you’re motivated and inspired to support red state Democrats, I’m here for it! At Every State Blue (https://everystateblue.org), we crowdfund support for underfunded Democrats – and have state projects in Missouri, Ohio, and Tennessee and nationally with our federal Forgotten Democrats program. You can support our work here.

While we’ve already already raised and distributed over $530,000 (!!!) for state legislative nominees this cycle, we’re not done! Our last disbursement will go out at the end of the month. There’s still time for you to help lift the nominees in Missouri, Ohio, and Tennessee that are helping spread a Democratic message. (Here’s a one-time donation link for Blue Missouri, Blue Ohio, and Blue Tennessee.)

Something Small to Read: Rural Voters for Harris Two-Pager!

The Harris/Walz campaign has released a great two-pager detailing how the campaign is working to help rural communities and voters. It begins: “Vice President Harris and Governor Walz know that rural America is the foundation of our country—from the family farms that feed our country to the towns that support small businesses. Both hail from large agricultural states. They know that rural communities are essential to the success and character of our nation. They are fighting for a future where everyone— in rural America and beyond—has the opportunity not just to get by, but to get ahead.”

The two-pager then lays out the Harris/Walz policies and accomplishments that it hopes will resonate with rural voters – while also providing the Trump/Project 2025 agenda that will send rural America backward. It’s a dense two pages, but worth a review, a share, and a bookmark. Download here:

Small Event to Attend: Oprah + Kamala = Awesome

On Thursday night from 8-10pm eastern, join Vice President Kamala Harris and Oprah Winfrey for what’s being described as “a one-of-a-kind livestream event uniting Team Kamala supporters from across the country.” This sounds so exciting!

Register here.

Small Action to Take: Voter Registration Day!

As usual, Taylor Swift is right: all the cool kids are registering to vote.

Today is National Voter Registration Day. If you’re reading this newsletter, I have little doubt that you’re already registered. But you should check your voter registration to make sure you don’t need to make any corrections (and to make sure you weren’t part of a purge effort). Do that easily here:

https://nationalvoterregistrationday.org/

Bonus Small Action to Take: Support Penzey’s

Since Kamala Harris visited their Pittsburgh store, Penzey’s has been vilified by Trump and Fox News. They sent out an email SOS on Friday – the first I’ve seen from them in the many years that I’ve been a customer.

They are an excellent company with an excellent product and an excellent mission. If you have not already become a customer, I hope you’ll consider supporting them now. I swear, there’s always something that I need from Penzey’s.

Head over to their website:

https://www.penzeys.com/

And I’ll add an extra pitch that the owner, Bill Penzey, writes excellent emails that I actually look forward to getting in my inbox. You can sign up for their email list here.

Thanks for reading, friend – I’m glad to see you here! If you love what I do and you want to support it, consider becoming a paid subscriber. It means a lot!