Minnesota Representative Dave Lislegard

With President Donald Trump explicitly targeting Representative Dave Lislegard’s area of the state, the “Iron Range,” Rep. Lislegard faced a tough re-election in 2020. Foundation Blue Media worked closely with Rep. Lislegard and his campaign to craft a video script that was authentic to the voters in his district.

Additionally, Foundation Blue Media traveled to Rep. Lislegard’s district—no small feat given the closest city of Duluth, Minnesota was 90 miles away—and filmed Rep. Lislegard at a scenic overlook highly recognizable to voters in the area. Upon completion of the video, Foundation Blue Media targeted the video on pre-roll while simultaneously running similar static programmatic display ads and Facebook posts to white, working class voters to help ensure that, even if they voted for Trump, they would move back to the Democratic side to vote for Rep. Lislegard in the State House race.

The video was a hit. Over half of the pre-roll impressions were watched in their entirety and the Facebook posts were shared widely throughout the district. And on November 3, Rep. Lislegard won re-election by a margin of 54.5% – 45.3%, making Rep. LIslegard one of the few Democratic state legislative bright spots in the entire Iron Range section of Minnesota. For reference, President Donald Trump won the district by a margin of 51.1% – 46.6%.

In the adjacent district that did digital in-house, the incumbent Democrat won by only 34 votes with a similar Trump-Biden margin than that of the Lislegard district.