How Taylor Swift Inspired Dads to Support Harris – Mother Jones

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Earlier this month The Lincoln Project aired an ad focusing on abortion rights that included a chilling line from the narrator, a young woman, in a monologue addressed to her Trump-voting father: “You knew his policies would end my freedom, my rights, my life – says. “You chose hate over me.”

The announcementdepicting a woman dying in agony from complications during childbirth, was produced by the Lincoln Project in an attempt to sway a demographic they called “Dobbs Dads” – a group of men open to voting to protect or restore their daughters’ health to abortion access – who might just lead to until Trump’s fall.

There is evidence of such a change in the recent Marist vote which showed Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of former President Donald Trump by 20 points among college-educated white men – and 5 point improvement above Biden’s 2020 margin with the same demographic.

“We call them Dobbs dads.” he tweeted Joe Trippi, a veteran Democratic strategist who works with the Lincoln Project. “And they break into Harris. One (of) our most important target groups.”

The Dobbs Dads moniker, of course, comes from the 2022 Supreme Court Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling in which judges led by three Trump appointees effectively struck down federal abortion access laws. Following this decision, 13 states completely banned abortion, mothers died due to lack of access to abortion, maternal deaths in Texas it doubled, infant deaths has increased across the country and Idaho Legislature disbanded commissions to investigate maternal deaths, clouding public understanding of the impact of the state’s abortion ban on mothers. Nearly two-thirds of the U.S. public believe abortion should be legal, including 61% of men Pew Research shows that the rapidly changing legal system has made the right to abortion one of the main election issues.

According to Stuart Stevens, another Lincoln Project adviser, pregnancy-related medical trauma has made more men open to voting against Trump, who has refused to sign a federal abortion ban, and Harris, who will work to restore abortion rights. As Stevens recently said, these men include: MSNBC, “voters who are more conservative than not, many of whom would check a box to say they oppose abortion. However, they are terrified by the specter of these tragedies.”

“These are men who really took pride in being their daughter’s protectors,” Trippi explains. “Suddenly they start wondering what this means in terms of Dobbs’ decision, thinking about their daughter’s future and the world W will live in.”

The Lincoln Project says its Dobbs Dads strategy is based on research conducted by its sister organization, the Lincoln Democracy Institute. LDI from April 2023 questionnaire more than 17,000 voters helped their team focus on two voting groups they saw as ripe for persuasion: Dobbs Dads and another they called Red Dawn Republicans — older GOP voters who prioritize traditional international alliances, particularly in opposition to Russia.

Alex Shashlo, who helps run the Lincoln Project’s digital campaigns, said their “super-targeted approach to talking to fathers about abortion” led them to choose narrators for “Daisy” – a nightmarish ad set in a delivery room – and another similar spot “This year” The strategy was partly inspired by a viral video clip of a speech by Taylor Swift with her father on taking a political stance ahead of the 2018 election. “If Taylor Swift said, ‘Hey, talk to your dad,’ to all of her followers, that would be a really powerful message,” Trippi said. LDI research confirmed that the concept of daughters talking to their fathers about abortion can effectively reach men.

In a close election, a targeted campaign can make a difference. The Lincoln Project claims to have identified approximately 680,000 Dobbs fathers in the swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. In a recent podcast, Trippi also reflected on the potential for demographics that could “surprise people going into Senate races like in Florida, Texas, maybe Montana.”

“There is an opportunity here,” he said.