Less than 100 days out from election, House Dems ramp up in-language outreach starting with first-ever Hindi and Chinese video ads
In an All Things Considered segment with Juana Summers, DCCC Chair Cheri Bustos discussed the rollout of their first-ever Hindi and Chinese video ads in TX-22 and plans to ramp up in-language outreach to communities of color in suburban districts that are increasingly becoming more diverse – areas that define much of the House battlefield.
This unprecedented outreach builds upon the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s efforts from the 2018 cycle, through the DCCC Cycle of Engagement program, as well as Rep. Gil Cisneros’ groundbreaking work connecting with AAPI voters through ethnic media and Sri Kulkarni’s campaign efforts reaching voters across 16 different languages (that has now been upped to 21 languages this cycle).
This cycle, the Cycle of Engagement program has made early investments in polling/research, field and recruitment of diverse staff and vendors early on to drive its efforts to better connect with voters of color that has helped them make deep inroads in suburban areas and put them in play – including various districts across Texas.
According to a recent study by Pew Research, the number of Asian American and Pacific Islander voters more than doubled, growing over 139 percent since 2000 to 11 million now. The Latino/Hispanic community has grew 121 percent in the same period to 32 million. The African American community grew 33 percent, reaching 30 million. According to the U.S. Census, there is now a nonwhite majority among our youngest Americans. You can read and listen to the NPR segment below.
Statement from DCCC Spokesperson Darwin Pham:
“Our country is changing, and our success at the ballot box depends on adapting to that change. We have some work to do. Our recent ads in Hindi and Chinese are an example of House Democrats putting our money where our mouth is and doing the work to bring diverse communities to the table.
“Just to put it in context in Texas – the growing influence of AAPI voters, and voters of color, could help us elect our first Indian American congressman from Texas, our first Afro-Latina congresswoman, our first Iranian American congresswoman elected – in districts people once thought improbable.”
From NPR:
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: President Trump has been making aggressive appeals to suburban voters lately. Many of these messages appear to be mostly targeting white voters, but the suburbs have been changing, and that could impact what happens in November. NPR’s Juana Summers is here to explain.
[…]JUANA SUMMERS: Yeah. So they look really different than they did in the mid-20th century, and there’s a couple reasons why – the changing racial and ethnic makeup, the influence of new immigrants and the aging of the population. To put some numbers behind this, back in 2000, suburban populations across the country were about 76% white. In 2018, that dropped to 68%…
[…] Democrats took back the House in 2018 with a lot of that success coming from suburban districts. And now polls are showing President Trump trailing Joe Biden badly in the suburbs. We’ve seen the president making a lot of broad appeals to suburban voters, for example, saying they’d face rising crime and declining home values if Joe Biden is elected president…
[…]And I’ve been talking to a lot of Democrats who see a number of opportunities to gain ground in the state of Texas at different levels. And one example is the suburban Houston district that President Trump won by eight points in 2016. Republican Congressman Pete Olson is retiring. And in that district, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is doing something it hasn’t done before. The committee is actually running Hindi and Chinese-language video ads in the district. Last week, I talked to the committee’s chairwoman, Congresswoman Sherry Bustos, about that strategy.
CHAIRWOMAN CHERI BUSTOS: This is the first that we are doing in this case in Hindi and Chinese, but we will expand this. But, you know, we know that there are about 20 different ethnicities and even more language in dialects. And, you know, so our goal is that we will work to grow our capacity to communicate with voters from every community. And this is the first step in that process.
SUMMERS: Yeah. And, Ari, talking about the demographics of this district, I’m told that the voters in that district, Asian American and Pacific Islander voters, make up about one-fifth of the population. And Congresswoman Bustos told us she expects that we’ll see lots more ads like this, too, in the future.
Tune in to listen to the full segment on NPR’s All Things Considered here…
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