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President Joe Biden speaks to service members and their families in support of Joining Forces, the initiative to support military and veteran families, caregivers, and survivors on June 9, 2023 at Fort Liberty, North Carolina.
Eight steps the Biden campaign should take to reach voters in the Tar Heel State.
The GOP may be eying a Republican presidency, but strategic investments made now can position North Carolina as Democrats’ firewall and the linchpin in President Joe Biden’s re-election bid.
Although several paths could garner Republicans the 270 electoral votes needed to retake the White House in 2024, they all intersect with a North Carolina attuned to its marginalized voices and unwilling to sacrifice human capital for political favor.
We implore the Biden campaign to implement the following eight strategies immediately to ensure the Tar Heel State is equipped to thwart voter suppression tactics and bolster the Democratic Party’s reach beyond 2024:
Early investment in on-the-ground infrastructure is vital to reaching rural and previously untapped communities of prospective voters. In 2020, the Bident campaign spent $47 million dollars on ads making North Carolina the fourth most expensive state for the campaign. Biden still lost by 1.3 points. We recommend the Biden campaign invest a minimum of $4.9 million in its North Carolina operations, beginning in Fall 2023. This funding would support everything from strategically-positioned paid staff to communications literature. This will help to lay the groundwork for a robust field campaign.
North Carolina will not be decided solely by urban or rural voters but through the masterful engagement of both groups that emphasizes what unites them above what divides them. There’s no question that the Biden campaign must invest heavily in the Charlotte area to reach the one-third of North Carolinians residing there, but field organizers dispatched to rural counties should be tactically selected based on their hands-on and contextual knowledge of the areas in order to establish meaningful connections that transcend rhetoric.
The Biden campaign must be willing to invest the same level of surrogate attention in North Carolina as it did in Georgia in 2020 and 2022. North Carolinians need to know that they matter to the Democratic Party, but it’s hard to feel truly valued when you’re kept at arm’s length. You can tell North Carolina voters all day long that their rights and prosperity are both on the ballot, but saturating the state with Democratic star power will show them that their plight is shared.
The Biden campaign must develop more complex strategies to reach Black, brown and Indigenous voters statewide because the one-size-fits-all approach squanders any hope of any one group feeling seen, much less valued. Again, strategic deployment of engaged field organizers is key to establishing meaningful connections with voters, and investing early in their recruitment ensures Biden’s messages can be targeted to the needs of specific communities.
During the 2022 election cycle, three out of four registered Latinos in North Carolina stayed home. The state’s lack of Spanish language media automatically limits direct mass outreach to Latino communities, so the Biden campaign needs to work diligently to craft community-specific outreach events that welcome these isolated voices to the national conversation.
Members of the Lumbee tribe once voted reliably Democrat, but underinvestment in one of the state’s largest Indigenous communities shifted its allegiance toward the GOP. Lumbee turnout—and Democrats’ ability to effectively engage and connect with the tribe’s roughly 55,000 North Carolina members—could reverse the trend.
You simply cannot persuade voters you cannot reach. As of 2022, only 40% of North Carolina’s rural population had access to reliable, high-speed internet, meaning rural voters still rely heavily on local papers for their news. The Biden campaign must bring in local media experts to guide strategic investment in rural advertising or risk its message never reaching huge chunks of the state.
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The GOP may be eying a Republican presidency, but strategic investments made now can position North Carolina as Democrats’ firewall and the linchpin in President Joe Biden’s re-election bid.
Although several paths could garner Republicans the 270 electoral votes needed to retake the White House in 2024, they all intersect with a North Carolina attuned to its marginalized voices and unwilling to sacrifice human capital for political favor.
We implore the Biden campaign to implement the following eight strategies immediately to ensure the Tar Heel State is equipped to thwart voter suppression tactics and bolster the Democratic Party’s reach beyond 2024:
Early investment in on-the-ground infrastructure is vital to reaching rural and previously untapped communities of prospective voters. In 2020, the Bident campaign spent $47 million dollars on ads making North Carolina the fourth most expensive state for the campaign. Biden still lost by 1.3 points. We recommend the Biden campaign invest a minimum of $4.9 million in its North Carolina operations, beginning in Fall 2023. This funding would support everything from strategically-positioned paid staff to communications literature. This will help to lay the groundwork for a robust field campaign.
North Carolina will not be decided solely by urban or rural voters but through the masterful engagement of both groups that emphasizes what unites them above what divides them. There’s no question that the Biden campaign must invest heavily in the Charlotte area to reach the one-third of North Carolinians residing there, but field organizers dispatched to rural counties should be tactically selected based on their hands-on and contextual knowledge of the areas in order to establish meaningful connections that transcend rhetoric.
The Biden campaign must be willing to invest the same level of surrogate attention in North Carolina as it did in Georgia in 2020 and 2022. North Carolinians need to know that they matter to the Democratic Party, but it’s hard to feel truly valued when you’re kept at arm’s length. You can tell North Carolina voters all day long that their rights and prosperity are both on the ballot, but saturating the state with Democratic star power will show them that their plight is shared.
The Biden campaign must develop more complex strategies to reach Black, brown and Indigenous voters statewide because the one-size-fits-all approach squanders any hope of any one group feeling seen, much less valued. Again, strategic deployment of engaged field organizers is key to establishing meaningful connections with voters, and investing early in their recruitment ensures Biden’s messages can be targeted to the needs of specific communities.
During the 2022 election cycle, three out of four registered Latinos in North Carolina stayed home. The state’s lack of Spanish language media automatically limits direct mass outreach to Latino communities, so the Biden campaign needs to work diligently to craft community-specific outreach events that welcome these isolated voices to the national conversation.
Members of the Lumbee tribe once voted reliably Democrat, but underinvestment in one of the state’s largest Indigenous communities shifted its allegiance toward the GOP. Lumbee turnout—and Democrats’ ability to effectively engage and connect with the tribe’s roughly 55,000 North Carolina members—could reverse the trend.
You simply cannot persuade voters you cannot reach. As of 2022, only 40% of North Carolina’s rural population had access to reliable, high-speed internet, meaning rural voters still rely heavily on local papers for their news. The Biden campaign must bring in local media experts to guide strategic investment in rural advertising or risk its message never reaching huge chunks of the state.
The GOP may be eying a Republican presidency, but strategic investments made now can position North Carolina as Democrats’ firewall and the linchpin in President Joe Biden’s re-election bid.
Although several paths could garner Republicans the 270 electoral votes needed to retake the White House in 2024, they all intersect with a North Carolina attuned to its marginalized voices and unwilling to sacrifice human capital for political favor.
We implore the Biden campaign to implement the following eight strategies immediately to ensure the Tar Heel State is equipped to thwart voter suppression tactics and bolster the Democratic Party’s reach beyond 2024:
Early investment in on-the-ground infrastructure is vital to reaching rural and previously untapped communities of prospective voters. In 2020, the Bident campaign spent $47 million dollars on ads making North Carolina the fourth most expensive state for the campaign. Biden still lost by 1.3 points. We recommend the Biden campaign invest a minimum of $4.9 million in its North Carolina operations, beginning in Fall 2023. This funding would support everything from strategically-positioned paid staff to communications literature. This will help to lay the groundwork for a robust field campaign.
North Carolina will not be decided solely by urban or rural voters but through the masterful engagement of both groups that emphasizes what unites them above what divides them. There’s no question that the Biden campaign must invest heavily in the Charlotte area to reach the one-third of North Carolinians residing there, but field organizers dispatched to rural counties should be tactically selected based on their hands-on and contextual knowledge of the areas in order to establish meaningful connections that transcend rhetoric.
The Biden campaign must be willing to invest the same level of surrogate attention in North Carolina as it did in Georgia in 2020 and 2022. North Carolinians need to know that they matter to the Democratic Party, but it’s hard to feel truly valued when you’re kept at arm’s length. You can tell North Carolina voters all day long that their rights and prosperity are both on the ballot, but saturating the state with Democratic star power will show them that their plight is shared.
The Biden campaign must develop more complex strategies to reach Black, brown and Indigenous voters statewide because the one-size-fits-all approach squanders any hope of any one group feeling seen, much less valued. Again, strategic deployment of engaged field organizers is key to establishing meaningful connections with voters, and investing early in their recruitment ensures Biden’s messages can be targeted to the needs of specific communities.
During the 2022 election cycle, three out of four registered Latinos in North Carolina stayed home. The state’s lack of Spanish language media automatically limits direct mass outreach to Latino communities, so the Biden campaign needs to work diligently to craft community-specific outreach events that welcome these isolated voices to the national conversation.
Members of the Lumbee tribe once voted reliably Democrat, but underinvestment in one of the state’s largest Indigenous communities shifted its allegiance toward the GOP. Lumbee turnout—and Democrats’ ability to effectively engage and connect with the tribe’s roughly 55,000 North Carolina members—could reverse the trend.
You simply cannot persuade voters you cannot reach. As of 2022, only 40% of North Carolina’s rural population had access to reliable, high-speed internet, meaning rural voters still rely heavily on local papers for their news. The Biden campaign must bring in local media experts to guide strategic investment in rural advertising or risk its message never reaching huge chunks of the state.