Todd Lippert

The Challenge: Minnesota State House District 20B Representative Todd Lippert won election to the exurban Minnesota seat in 2018 by a margin of over ten points. The district, about 45 minutes south of Minneapolis and 60 minutes east of Mankato, was Democratic primarily due to the college campuses of St. Olaf University and Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota and surrounding progressive communities Outside of Northfield, Minnesota, the populace included a significant portion of lower middle class and middle-class White voters who could be very susceptible to the “defund the police” and socialism messages utilized by the Republican Party.

When the coronavirus started peaking again in July and August, the campaign realized that these two universities would either not meet in-person or might send students home mid-semester. Additionally, without the ability to knock on doors or conduct traditional field activities on campus, it would become more difficult to ensure students voted and that they voted the entire Democratic ticket. Needless to say, there was concern about student turnout in the 2020 re-election campaign.

Our Solution: Our objective was to utilize Facebook advertising as part of a multi-faceted paid media approach–Facebook, programmatic digital, mail, paid phones, and robocalls–to inform students, right upon their re-arrival on campus, about Lippert and about when voting began. Given that voting coincided with the re-arrival of students on campus, Facebook advertising was a key tool for informing students about the campaign.

We created a unique Facebook advertisement for each of the two campuses geo-targeted to run within a one-mile radius to the center of campus as part of an overall paid communications strategy. The student outreach campaign began upon the students’ arrival on campus. That way, if students were sent home early due to COVID, the campaign would have successfully advertised in time to build up Lippert’s name recognition before the students were sent home.

The advertisements used GIF technology to allow students to see the top issues that were foremost on their minds. Without access to polling, we chose issues that would likely be persuadable based on the 2018 campaign and based on volunteer phone calling conducted on campus in the previous semester. By using a GIF, we were not constrained by the Facebook 80/20 rule.

Looking at election data, it appeared the college campus outreach plan worked. In each university’s precinct, Democratic performance by turnout % and raw numbers were comparable in 2020 than in 2016 or 2018.

Additionally, the Minnesota House DFL Caucus indicated to the campaign and their team that college turnout was significantly lower in other similar situated college areas around the state.

The Result: Todd Lippert was re-elected by 5.1% or 1,219 votes.