Iowa State Senator Sarah Trone Garriott

The Challenge: Safeguard A Close Incumbent-Protect Race. The Iowa State Senate Democratic Caucus faced three tight incumbent-protect races and a crucial challenge race. One of the key incumbent-protect races was Iowa State Senate District 14. The Democratic incumbent, Sarah Trone Garriott, had initially won in 2020 and 2022 by decreasing margins. In 2022, the Caucus expended virtually all of their resources to protect Garriott’s seat. In 2024, the Caucus was focused on equally funding all targeted races. As a result, Caucus resources would not be as substantial for Garriott in 2024 as it was in 2022.

Worse, the Republicans recruited the perfect candidate to face Garriott. Mark Hanson was a fixture in the community, a long-time incumbent County Board supervisor and a much more likable candidate than Garriott’s 2022 opponent. Additionally, he was a business conservative Republican who was difficult to paint as an extremist.

With four weeks remaining, internal polling had Garriott up by 2%, but with more than 10% of the electorate still undecided. Given the traditional pattern that undecided voters ultimately choose the challenger, Garriott would need to come up with advertising that would knock down Hanson’s apparent likability.

Our Solution: Scalpel and Sledgehammer. As a result, we convinced the candidate and the other vendors that it was time to utilize our “ace in the hole” which was Hanson’s votes to increase taxes and his public salary. By creating a hard-hitting, direct and brief video with complimentary static ads combined along with mail and field on the same message, we could convince voters that Hanson was not what he seemed.

In the final three weeks of the race, we released our Hanson attack video on numerous digital platforms. We placed the video on YouTube and social as a sledgehammer strategy–delivering the property tax message throughout the entire district to build chatter. On CTV and pre-roll, we used a scalpel approach. We matched the same list as was used for direct mail through Geofenced Addressable technology, targeting directly into the same homes that were included in the field and mail program. Unlike IP- and cookie-matching, Geofenced Addressable technology was able to target the doors that were being canvassed and receiving mail with the same message at a 90% match rate.

Although the spend was relatively meager–$15000–the impact was significant.

The Result: Key District Protected By A Razor Thin Margin. In a race that historically would be a bloody battle to the wire, the combination of scalpel and sledgehammer on key economic issues broke through. Garriott was able to hold her seat by a mere 29 votes–her closest margin ever. In comparison, the other two incumbent-protect races both lost–one by 44 votes and another by 1%.