Against the Wind
A topline analysis of the deficit Democrats need to overcome in the heartland
I hope everyone had a great New Year!
As this year begins, my team and I wanted to share some of what we learned in 2024 so we can help inform anyone who wants to keep up the fight in 2025 and beyond. We’ll get into polling, advertising, messaging, media, and everything that worked (and didn’t work).
To start, my 2024 campaign manager, Caleb, wanted to share some data points that show that the trends in Missouri aren’t unlike what we’ve seen across the country in the last 10-20 years. He thinks this will be a helpful foundation before we dig deeper this month!
Please let us know your thoughts and questions in the comments section and, as always, if you have the ability to become a paid subscriber to help us continue this work, you can sign up here.
— Lucas
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Despite being outspent by millions of dollars and getting less support from outside groups than any Missouri Senate candidate has had in decades, Lucas was able to outperform the presidential ticket by roughly 5% — a feat that meant victory for some in other states in 2024, but not as many as it should have.
Being outspent and getting less support meant making tough calls, but one thing it also showed us was how effective Lucas’ message was with voters. In the media markets where we could afford to effectively fund our advertising campaigns, we saw Lucas’ outperformance rise to even double-digit levels, including in working-class and rural areas like Jefferson, Iron, Carroll, and Linn counties.
That 10%+ overperformance stands in stark contrast to the outer markets where we didn’t have the resources to get Lucas’ story and message to voters. In those areas, the overperformance dipped to nearly 0%. In short, something worked! Where we could get the word out, we could close the gap with the Presidential ticket by around 10%, and where we couldn’t get the word out, the gap didn’t really close it at all.
In the coming weeks, we’ll be diving into some of the research and messaging we found made that all possible, as well as the perspectives we heard from voters. But first, I wanted to give you a foundation for that info, starting with some data on the obstacles candidates are facing in the heartland, including: recent voter resistance to splitting their tickets for down-ballot Democrats and Trump-driven turnout.
Here is a chart showing the impact spending had on various “red” state races. You can see how big of a difference it makes for a Democratic candidate to be able to get their message out when starting from behind because of those two obstacles.
Just as we saw in Missouri, several Senate campaigns in 2024 found that spending on their message had a positive impact on the race’s margin — especially for the few who were able to outspend their opponent and opposing outside groups.
All of these states have trended red in recent elections, meaning these overperformances weren’t enough to win on Election Day. But while talking heads and election watchers obsess over overperformance percentages and race margins, an often overlooked detail is the raw vote counts behind them.
Here’s one way to illustrate why that matters in Missouri:
In Missouri’s 2016 Governor’s race, Democrat Chris Koster got over 1.27m votes, falling roughly 5.5% short of winning. That same year, Democrat Jason Kander got 30,000 more votes than Koster, and his margin was just under 3%. Lucas got 1.24m votes, just 30,000 fewer votes than Koster — but the margin of loss was a massively different story. Despite having a vote count in the same ballpark as Koster and Kander, Lucas lost by double digits while their races were close.
Turnout is stronger than ever, and it’s largely due to Trump being on the ballot.
Missouri was once considered the quintessential bellwether state, voting for the winner in U.S. presidential elections between 1904 and 2004, with one exception — Stevenson beating Eisenhower by just 4,000 votes in 1956 in an electorate of 1.8 million votes.
The second half of Missouri’s streak ended in 2008, when McCain beat Obama by 4,000 votes out of 2.9 million total votes. In 2012, Romney beat Obama in Missouri by 260,000 out of 2.75 million total votes. In down-ballot races, Democrats still outperformed in statewide elections, sometimes winning by double-digit margins.
But the shift from 2012 to 2016 confirmed fewer and fewer voters were open to the ticket-splitting Missouri elections had been known for in down-ballot races — even voting against Democrats they’ve already elected statewide in the past. Democrats went from holding nearly every statewide office until 2017 to nearly none in a single election cycle. 2020 and 2024 then presented a new problem: Hundreds of thousands of previously “infrequent” voters showing up to the polls, largely backing Trump.
I just threw a lot of numbers at you, so let me put it more plainly: Traditional ticket-splitters more frequently rejecting Democrats, combined with new Trump-driven turnout as of 2020, has turned potentially single-digit races in Missouri into double-digit races.
The unfortunate reality for Democrats nationwide is Missouri isn’t alone in this trend — putting the possibility of passing pro-worker and pro-freedom policies in the U.S. Senate increasingly out of reach:
Going forward, a victory for candidates in heartland states will almost certainly take more than marginal improvements on the 2016 performances. It’s going to take a seismic shift at the national level to bring things back into balance. In Missouri, that will mean a 50,000 to 100,000 vote improvement on Kander or Koster’s 2016 performance won’t be nearly enough — it could take winning over 200,000+ additional voters.
So that’s where we are at. And, fortunately, our campaign research found some pathways that candidates in Missouri and similar states might find helpful to connect with voters and outperform the top of the ticket.
Next time I’ve got an update for Lucas’ Substack, we’ll dig into our public opinion research to explore why voters from these two groups — traditional ticket-splitters and infrequent voters — say they’re more hesitant than ever to vote for a Democrats down-ballot, even when they dislike the Republican. Then we’ll look at what messaging drove tens of thousands of those voters to switch over to Lucas where we had the resources to deliver his message.
A middle-age woman from a small Missouri town refused to display a democratic United States senate candidate’s (Kunce) sign in her yard. Doing so would be dangerous according to her social media post. Driving through Stover, Missouri, a man reported spotting a Harris-Walz sign and later congratulated the homeowner’s bravery on Facebook. (Displaying a candidate’s sign is an act of patriotism, not bravery,)
Almost 1,000 miles away, a Pennsylvanian resident also expressed his fear, on another feed, of displaying a democratic candidate yard sign. Democratic candidates and their supporters are routinely referred to in writing and verbally as murderers, Marxists and miscreants. Many citizens and Republican politicians are harassing and belittling others for simply being Democrats. Since several decades Republicans pummeled voters with criticisms and criminal accusations of Democrats. This tactic has worked to dismay anyone from merely listening to the propositions of democratic candidates. And this tactic inspires infrequent voters to action and will prevent any significant increase in votes and election wins; no matter how strong the candidate.
Being a Democrat and supporting democratic candidates and politicians must be viewed as a appealing and admirable possibility. Redefining who is and what being a Democrat means is crucial. Democrats are grandparents, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, cousins—family members. We are teachers, doctors, pipe fitters, sales clerks, social workers, nurses, custodians, and engineers. We shop in grocery stores, drive on highways, play in neighborhood parks. We live in apartments, houses and farms in the largest and smallest American cities. If it does not, then only one party will survive and democracy will die.
Republicans deliver there message every day, week after week, month after month and year after year. During campaign season and outside campaign season.
Until Democrats develop a new message delivery system that does the same, we will continue to lose. A great message that is not heard is useless. A message that is heard, even if lousy, can be powerful.
The following is my suggestion but let's crowd source for ideas for a new message delivery system.
I'm not sure the current set of political tools we have are sufficient to solve the problem of finding a better way forward. The Republicans have created a phenomenal message system based on one way communication with TV, Radio and print. They also use 2 way communication but it is Rush Limbaugh type comments where the commenter is just restating the original message.
Democrats tried to duplicate it with MSNBC and more liberal newspapers, but I think one way communication will never be successful with Democrats. I realize this is a gross generalization, but Democrats want to be part of the solution, not just follow someone else's solution.
Republicans value loyalty and obedience more than justice and fairness. Republicans seem more content with hierarchal structures. Democrats seem more content with peer structures.
We need some kind of platform that easily allows groups such as Lucas' Substack to join together in solving the problem. It must have 2 way communication. Members will need to be kept informed of other group's replies.
1. There needs to be an easy link that Lucas can put on his Substack that allows each of his members to join the larger group as members of Lucas' Substack. Lucas' substack members will speak to the platform with one voice. Lucas Kunce will need to aggregate that voice and his members will need to approve that aggregation. Concurrence at a minimum will be needed, but the aggregation method would be determined by the group.
2. The platform will need to verify all members as people. There will probably be 2 classes of members. The first will be anonymous but still verified as a real person. The second will be verified by name and address and citizenship. The member will be able to decide which way they want to join. All can participate in the discussion and aggregated responses but the verified citizen group could vote on specific candidate issues. (Member Jane Doe lives in MO congressional district 1 so their voice is heard by the MO congressional district 1's candidate.)
Citizen verified members will still be able to communicate with a handle. The difference will be when they vote on something for a candidate, the candidate will know that member is in their district.
3. All members from all groups, like Lucas' Substack group, will need a way to see all other aggregated responses. Lucas' group, as a single voice, will be able to respond, if the group chooses to respond to other aggregated responses. There needs to be 2 way communication within Lucas' group and between Lucas' group and all other groups. There may be a set of tiered larger groups, instead of one larger group, to handle physical volume (make a scalable system).
3. The platform needs to be able to handle all forms of groups. Substack, BlueSky, X, Facebook, LinkedIn and any other groups that have 2 way communication. There should also be a link for groups that meet in person. The aggregated responses would need to made electronically, and members would need to join the larger group electronically, but the group could discuss in person.
I'd love to hear any thoughts you have. I'd love even more for you or some of your members to champion some sort of new message delivery system alternative to the Republican messaging system. I'll help. A great message that is not heard is useless.