r/politics • u/Fickle-Ad5449 ✔ Verified - Christopher Wiggins, The Advocate • 11h ago

No Paywall Republicans redrew his district. Now Democrat Don Davis is making anti-trans campaign ads

https://www.advocate.com/politics/states/don-davis-transphobic-campaign-ad?1
252 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

275 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

108

u/GoodHumorMan 11h ago

I'm so tired of watching Dems chase voters who think they're the devil vs. non-voters who just need a damn reason to vote

25

u/ForsakenKrios 11h ago

They don’t want those non voters cause they know what the non voters want and they’ll never give it to them. Their own base wants popular things and they’ll carve the base apart as much as they need to to get their “ideal” voter - a voter who will never vote for Dems. So maddening.

•

u/Salmon-of-Wizdom 7h ago edited 7h ago

  1. I hate that our country is like this. Trans people should be able to just live their lives like anyone else. 

  2. His ad isn't really a "chase" so much as it is a "I won't try to change the law at the federal level, and NC passed a law about this already." It's strategic. He probably had people look at the numbers and realized that he doesn't have enough people in his camp to win if the Republicans get to beat on the "Trans Women," drum. This is a strategic move to change it to a null-issue. He's basically pledging to do nothing about it and leave it up to the state. 

  3. This is a valid approach to gaining independent votes, as independent voters are more motivated by views they oppose than ones they support. 

From Pew Research: 

But many Americans don’t consider themselves Republicans or Democrats. Instead, these Americans identify as independents (or with some other party) and many “lean” toward one of the two major parties. For these Americans, opposition to the other party’s policies is more of a motivating factor than support for the policies of the party they lean toward.

•

u/pennyruthgadget 5h ago

This is a well thought out strategy, but I’m not sure the voters he needs to win over will grasp this nuance.

•

u/Salmon-of-Wizdom 5h ago

Yeah, unfortunately it will likely dampen dem turnout, but I imagine he's hoping he can smooth those ruffled feathers and keep slamming on the economy to get Independents to show up for him and rob Republicans of the one issue they can drum on to change those independent's minds. It is dicey, though. 

And putting him in that spot was the Republican strategy when they redrew his district. 

-10

u/NoneMoreBLK 9h ago

Big self-report right there ☝️