This Spanish-language ad, called “Este,” featured snippets of Angle’s unflattering ad imagery and comments about Hispanics.
ran spots about her belief that it wasn’t a senator’s job to fight for jobs, for wanting to abolish the Department of Education, for voting to protect the privacy of sex offend- ers and for letting insurance companies deny coverage for cancer screening. The spots were anchored with her own words; we let voters see her for themselves. And the spots all led to the same conclusion—that Sharron Angle was too extreme. The ads proved devastating. Angle’s unfavorables in- creased more than 30 points in just two months.
End Game: Hispanics and Republicans By fall 2010, we were approaching our vote goals for a variety of target groups, including Democrats, moderates and independents. In the closing days, we made special ef- forts with regard to two groups in particular: Hispanics and wavering Republicans.
The campaign had engaged in a comprehensive, re-
search-driven effort to reach Hispanic voters through- out the election. When our opponent started running ads containing unflattering portrayals of Hispanics, we worked with James Aldrete and his team at Message, Au- dience & Presentation—who helped to design a terrific Hispanic media program—to repurpose them in ads of our own that ran on Spanish-language outlets. These ads helped drive up turnout among one of our most impor- tant target groups. As Election Day approached, we noticed something else: liberal to moderate Republicans were beginning to swing our way. So we put up new ads featuring Republicans and business leaders warning that electing Sharron Angle would cost Nevada thousands of jobs. The ads helped undermine support for Angle in her base.
In “A Better Choice for Southern Nevada,” business leaders and newspaper editorials testified to Reid’s merits and Angle’s faults.
Conclusion By Election Day, we had succeeded in making the race a choice, not a referendum, thanks largely to messages we communicated via television advertisements. In polling, voters were making their choice clear: Reid’s favorables were 10 points higher than Angle’s. After being written off by countless pundits and politicos, Reid went on to win re-election by 5 percentage points. While it was a stormy night for Democrats around the
nation, in Nevada, Reid sat in another Las Vegas hotel suite knowing he would return to Washington as leader of Sen- ate Democrats and a determined senator for Nevada.
Jim Margolis is a partner at GMMB. Anson Kaye is a senior vice president at GMMB. Brandon Hall was Harry Reid’s 2010 campaign manager. Rebecca Lambe is a senior advisor to Harry Reid.
April 2011 | Campaigns & Elections 31
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