Straight from the States: The Inside Scoop on Local Elections

Presidential campaigns occupy most of the media attention and mindshare among voters, but local elections often have a more significant impact on our daily lives.

Straight from the States – a content series from DI staff located around the country – offers insights on the political and policy dynamics driving elections in local markets. This series examines top-of-mind issues and conversations among voters and how their interests are represented by their local leaders.

This collection of insights was originally published during the 2024 election cycle.

‍

New Jersey

2024 marks the beginning of a new age in New Jersey elections, and those operating in the political, media and advocacy space should be on notice.

The County Line, a ballot arrangement where candidates endorsed by the county political party are specifically grouped together in the same column of the ballot, was ruled ‘likely unconstitutional’ by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in March 2024. The line was seen as confusing and anti-democratic by critics. County Clerks were ordered to print ballots that grouped candidates for the same office together, like the rest of the country does. The ruling will only apply to the Democratic primary in 2024, but is likely to apply to both parties in 2025, when New Jersey holds gubernatorial and legislative elections.

The abolishment of the line shifts the balance of power from insiders and party bosses to grassroots groups and ‘outsider’ (anyone not endorsed by the county party) candidates. The line’s ouster was driven by grassroots advocates tired of the machine and patronage politics that have defined the state for generations.

On the Democrat side of the aisle, it remains to be seen whether this new arrangement will help upstart candidates like Andy Kim, who led the charge to kill the line as part of his challenge to U.S. Senator Bob Menendez, who is currently standing trial for bribery and corruption. Menendez’s son, U.S. Rep. Robert Menendez Jr. of the 8th Congressional District, is also facing a difficult primary challenge driven by Democrat primary voters exhausted with the old way of doing business.

New Jersey voters have signaled a desire for a type of politics that empowers them to choose their representatives more democratically. This sentiment could reverberate throughout the state’s political culture for years to come. Those who can adapt to this changing environment are more likely to see a favorable policy outcome, while those who don’t risk running out of gas in the middle of the Jersey Turnpike.

‍

Colorado

In many states, local elections don’t just cover state officials, they can also include state justices. For example, Colorado’s Supreme Court has three incumbent justices on the ballot this fall. While Colorado’s governor appoints justices to the Colorado Supreme Court, voters have the opportunity to vote yes or no during a retention election this November on whether these individuals remain on the state’s court come January 2025. Whether Coloradoans are happy or unhappy with the actions and decisions of their state justices, voters should seize the opportunity to make their voices heard in the upcoming fall elections.

Around election time, newsrooms are inundated with political stories and election analysis, polling, and results. For organizations looking to expand their media presence in communities across Colorado, it’s important to be familiar with the local political landscape, opportunities and challenges, and understanding how these dynamics impact your organization’s media goals. Finding a way to tie-in local dynamics to stories and messaging is critical for landing an interview or securing coverage.

Partnering with an agency with niche insights into hyperlocal media markets can help set your business priorities, initiatives and offerings apart from the general masses. Reach out to see how Direct Impact can help your business or organization navigate the highly anticipated, heavily saturated local elections news cycle this year.

‍

Florida

Florida is hot right now – and not just the summer’s record-breaking temperatures, but the state’s electoral landscape.

The Sunshine State has historically been closely contested, with an average margin of victory of just 2.2 points in presidential elections since 2000. Despite its recent rightward tilt, Florida remains coveted by candidates and issues across the ideological spectrum. With the state’s primary election looming on August 20, here are three factors driving the discussion from Pensacola to Key West – and some reasons why partnering with Direct Impact and our network of Florida experts can make a difference for your in-state communications.

1. Amendments are on the ballot: Certain to increase turnout is the presence of two major, polarizing constitutional amendments on the statewide ballot this fall – Amendment 3, which will legalize recreational marijuana in Florida; and Amendment 4, which protects access to reproductive rights.

‍

Takeaway: While these amendments will galvanize interest among voters across the aisle, communicating in this highly-charged environment can be tricky – understanding local and regional nuance can help avoid undesired controversy.

2. An increasingly diverse population: Florida’s population is expanding rapidly, as home to four of the nation’s top five fastest-growing metro areas. In particular, North Central Florida has the fastest-growing Hispanic population in America. At the same time, Florida has a fractured media landscape with ten different media markets.

Takeaway: These factors, plus the growth of social media advertising, necessitates a tailored media approach – earned, placed, owned, paid, and digital – combined with local intelligence to reach the state’s 22 million residents where they are.

3. The Kamala factor: Kamala Harris’ decision to stand for the Democratic presidential nomination has substantively shaken up the 2024 presidential election. That includes in Florida, where two reputable polls have shown the Vice President closing the gap with the former President to as little as three points.

Takeaway: This surge alongside the turnout-driving constitutional amendments may have effects down the ballot. That could include the Senate race, where U.S. Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) is facing a determined challenge from former U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-FL); recent polls have shown just a four-point margin in the race. This could also include vulnerable incumbent House members, like U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (FL-13) and U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (FL-27), for whom the electoral margins may make the difference.

Even among battleground states, Florida has always presented a unique communications challenge due to population, demographics, and geographic diversity. Paid communications are massively expensive in Florida, with three of America’s largest television markets; earned media and a strong ground game of stakeholder engagement remain critical to message reach, penetration, and results.

Since 1988, Direct Impact has offered scalable, high impact public affairs and communications services that create state and local change, shifting the opinions of consumers, policymakers, stakeholders, and constituents. With the nation’s largest field network, Direct Impact and our more than 1,000 in-market local experts cover every U.S. community, media market, and political jurisdiction.

In a complicated communications environment like Florida, no one knows the state’s landscape better than Direct Impact and our local partners. If your organization’s message priorities are on the line this fall, this local expertise could be more valuable than – with apologies to Taylor Swift – a timeshare down in Destin.

‍

Wisconsin

‍

While historically famous for cheese, brats, beer, subzero winters and, of course, the beloved Green Bay Packers, Wisconsin endures the national spotlight – and a tsunami of political ads – every four years as one of America’s “battleground states” in the presidential election.

Even though a majority of registered Wisconsin voters ultimately voted for the Democratic presidential candidate every cycle from 1988 to 2012, the final vote tally was never a foregone conclusion until the evening of Election Day. This was reinforced in 2016 by former President Donald Trump’s win in the state by less than 1% of the vote and again in 2020 by President Joe Biden’s win by a similar margin.

As fresh polling data from the Marquette University Law School Poll (perhaps the most reliable barometer of voter sentiment in Wisconsin) suggests, registered voters in Wisconsin are once again nearly evenly divided between those who support Vice President Kamala Harris (52%) vs. former President Donald Trump (48%) – with a margin of error of +/-4.4 percentage points.

While the polling data and previous two election cycles certainly underscore Wisconsin’s status as an electoral battleground, there are three other key factors at play – all of which revolve around the importance of strategically driving voter turnout with less than a month to go until Election Day:

The Evolving “Battle” between Blue vs. Red Counties

In an interview last month with one of Wisconsin’s most highly respected journalists, Steve Walters, for The Isthmus, former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson (R), urged former President Donald Trump to campaign in “the belly of the beast” known as Dane County to boost his chances of winning Wisconsin in November. As home of the proudly progressive capital city of Madison and the flagship University of Wisconsin campus, it is no secret that Dane County is one of the bluest counties in the nation. Combined with blue Milwaukee County, these counties are where Democrats running for statewide office have historically garnered the majority of their votes.

Yet, as recently reported by Madison’s CBS affiliate, WISC-TV, the Republican Party is attempting to make inroads in Dane County, which is the state’s fastest-growing county after welcoming more than 10,000 new residents over the past year. Former President Trump became the first Republican presidential nominee in 28 years to visit Dane County just last week and will make a second appearance within “the belly of the beast” this week.

On the flip side, there are the bright red “WOW counties” of suburban Milwaukee in southeastern Wisconsin – Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington – where voters have traditionally delivered overwhelming margins for Republican statewide candidates every election cycle. However, between the “pro-Trump” vs. “anti-Trump” divisions within the Republican Party and being the home of the state’s Democrat Lieutenant Governor Sarah Rodriguez, Waukesha County is among the Democratic Party’s top get-out-the-vote (GOTV) targets this election cycle.

In just the last few weeks, Minnesota First Lady Gwen Walz and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer (representing another battleground state) both campaigned in Waukesha County on behalf of Vice President Kamala Harris.

Although she has yet to visit Waukesha County, Vice President Harris did make a symbolic visit with former Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-WY) last week to Ripon, the birthplace of the Republican Party located in the Republican stronghold of Fond du Lac County.

With 10 electoral college votes on the line, neither party is taking Wisconsin’s most populous counties for granted, regardless of historic blue vs. red voting trends.

Dominating Voter Turnout in the Purple Counties

As less than 1% of the vote ultimately decided who won Wisconsin’s 10 electoral college votes in 2016 and in 2020, the state’s purple counties also factor prominently within each party’s GOTV strategy. Notably, these are counties that switched between delivering a victory for the Republican candidate one cycle and then the Democrat candidate the next cycle.

At least three of these counties include Columbia and Sauk (neighbors to Dane County) along with picturesque Door County in northeastern Wisconsin along Lake Michigan. According to data from the Wisconsin Elections Commission, all three counties voted for Trump in 2016 before Sauk County and Door County switched to voting for Biden in 2020. During the 2022 midterm elections, all three counties voted for incumbent Democrat Governor Tony Evers; however, Door County and Columbia County also voted to re-elect Republican U.S. Senator Ron Johnson.

The results referenced below also highlight the voter turnout patterns from one election cycle to the next – with a noticeable spike in turnout for the 2020 presidential election before dropping off for the 2022 midterms:

Sauk County*

• 2022 – Voted for Governor Tony Evers (D) with 15,285 votes over challenger Tim Michels (R) with 13,348 votes
• 2022 – Voted for former Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes (D) with 14,618 votes over U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R) with 14,289 votes
• 2020 – Voted for Joe Biden (D) with 18,108 votes over Donald Trump (R) with 17,493 votes
• 2016 – Voted for Donald Trump (R) with 14,799 votes over Hillary Clinton (D) with 14,690 votes

Door County*

• 2022 – Voted for Gov. Evers (D) with 8,984 votes over Tim Michels (R) with 8,145 votes
• 2022 – Voted for Sen. Johnson (R) with 8,685 votes over Mandela Barnes (D) with 8,611
• 2020 – Voted for Joe Biden (D) with 10,044 votes over Donald Trump (R) with 9,752 votes
• 2016 – Voted for Donald Trump (R) with 8,580 votes over Hillary Clinton (D) with 8,014 votes

Columbia County*

• 2022 – Voted for Gov. Evers (D) with 14,168 votes over Tim Michels (R) with 13,008 votes
• 2022 – Voted for Sen. Johnson (R) with 13,899 votes over Mandela Barnes (D) with 13,410
• 2020 – Voted for Donald Trump (R) with 16,927 votes over Joe Biden (D) with 16,410 votes
• 2016 – Voted for Donald Trump (R) with 14,163 votes over Hillary Clinton (D) with 13,528 votes

* Source: Wisconsin Elections Commission

Split-Ticket Voting Trend

As any campaign strategist with experience in the state will acknowledge, Wisconsinites have a tendency to split their votes between Democrat and Republican candidates as they work their way down their general election ballots. While they may favor one party’s presidential candidate over the other based on broader national issues, they may be satisfied with the job being done by their local officials, Members of Congress, governor and/or state legislators of the opposite party.

The same can be said when voting for two statewide candidates running for different offices, as Wisconsinites re-elected Democrat Governor Tony Evers and Republican U.S. Senator Ron Johnson during the 2022 midterms.

In an interview with Spectrum News, Mordecai Lee, professor emeritus at UW-Milwaukee and a longtime observer of Wisconsin politics, noted that while not significant in number, there still could be enough split-ticket voting to make a difference in the outcome of this year’s presidential election. As Spectrum News pointed out, approximately 20,000 votes decided the presidential election in Wisconsin in 2016 and in 2020.

These unique dynamics only reinforce the importance of strategically targeted, hyperlocal messaging and community engagement among candidates running for office in a battleground state like Wisconsin. In other words, Wisconsin voters expect candidates to show up and personally make their case as opposed to relying solely on campaign ads and direct mail. Knowing the difference that a few thousand votes will have on the outcome of a major election, candidates must effectively localize and tailor their messaging in way that not only resonates with voters but drives turnout where it matters most.

Similarly, companies and organizations looking to make an impact in their priority markets need to thoughtfully show up and ensure their strategy is uniquely tailored to a specific community – whether it’s located in a blue, red, or purple state. Every day, the team at Direct Impact – which includes former campaign strategists – helps guide our clients through a myriad of community dynamics while strategically communicating in a way that resonates among target audiences. After November 5th and heading into January 2025, we are ready to help our clients successfully navigate the new landscape and achieve their objectives.