Campaign

Texas Democrats roll out significant Black media ad buy

by Marty Johnson - 10/06/20 7:00 AM ET

The Texas Democratic Party is launching its largest ad buy in Black media this cycle, a six-figure investment that comes less than a month before Election Day.

Now in the home stretch leading up to Nov. 3, the ad buy — which features print, digital and audio spots — follows a $500,000 purchase that the party made two weeks ago.

Both ad buys are part of a Get Out the Vote campaign that began at the beginning of the year. It started with the goal of getting 2 million previously unregistered Texans signed up to cast a ballot on Election Day in hopes of regaining control of the state House for the first time since 2000.

The Texas Democratic Party’s efforts, coupled with the state’s struggles with the coronavirus pandemic, have put Texas, typically a Republican stronghold, into play in the general election.

The new ads encourage Black Texans to vote and cast their ballots early. Texas has some of the strictest voting laws in the country, but does have an early voting period from Oct. 13-30.

“Early voting starts on October 13. Be one of the first to vote to move our country forward,” one of the digital video ads says.

In a statement, party Vice Chair Carla Brailey called Black voters “the backbone of the Democratic Party.”

“For far too long, Black voters have been taken for granted and investment in our community has been out of reach and difficult to come by,” Brailey added. “We will continue to invest and continue to fight for every vote because we know that when we engage our communities, we win. [President] Trump, [Gov.] Greg Abbott and the rest of the Texas Republicans fear what will happen if Black voters exercise our power in this state.”

Since 2010, Texas’s electorate has increased in size and become more diverse. From 2010 to 2018, the Lone Star State added 400,000 eligible Black voters and well over 1 million eligible Latino voters. As of 2018, Texas has the largest population of eligible Black voters and the second largest population of eligible Latino voters in the U.S.