Tech for Campaigns (TFC) can draw more positives than most from this cycle. Highlights include protecting majorities through our Digital Campaign Services Program in PA and MN, breaking supermajorities in WI, and winning key races in states including MN, PA, and AZ. Through our Digital Voter Turnout program we reached 15.6 million voters and signed up 263,000 to vote early or by mail.
However, we didn’t meet all our goals. Amid a national rightward shift, Democrats underperformed in vote share up-and-down the ballot. Time alone won't usher change. Commercial digital ad spend surpassed TV ad spend in 2017, but 8 years later TV still dominates politics.
We’ve always known this is a long game, but the mandate has never been clearer–Democrats as a party must modernize campaign communication strategies, and digital is the foundation.
Digital marketing has always been the foundation of TFC. In 2025, we’ll continue to invest in digital, test new ways to reach voters, and support swing districts in states like GA, MI, and VA. We’re continuing to build momentum and institutional knowledge to combat extremism and fight for democracy.
In 2024, TFC worked across 14 states, supporting 150+ campaigns on 300+ digital projects to strengthen the position of Democrats at the state level. We helped defend Democratic majorities in the PA and MN Houses, broke the Republican supermajorities in the WI Assembly and Senate, and gained a seat on the MI Supreme Court. We also worked to win key races like Mandy Steele’s (PA-33), the critical 1 seat to hold the PA House majority, Kevin Volk’s (AZ-17), a flipped seat, and Lucy Rehm’s (MN-48B), who won narrowly with 50.4% of the vote. These wins are all critical for protecting everything from abortion rights to climate policies to gun safety.
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Paid digital ads are essential for campaign success. In NV, where Democrats held the Assembly majority amid a rightward statewide shift, eight of nine TFC-supported candidates who ran digital ads won their races. Candidates who invested the most in digital outperformed projected vote share by the highest percentages. Tying candidates to focus-tested issues like education and reproductive rights led to success, and social-optimized video ads boosted views and engagement. Starting digital campaigns early, allocating sufficient budgets, and rigorous testing were critical to running successful programs.
Building on TFC’s success driving voter turnout with influencers in past cycles, this year we tested partnering with content creators to support candidates in AK, MI, and NV.
Our influencer posts reached 40% more adults ages 25-34 and women than traditional digital ads, illustrating that influencer campaigns are an important tool to reach women and younger voters. Our digital ads created using influencer content had 30% more engagement than traditional digital ads for the same cost.
TFC plans to build on these encouraging results, and explore new channels, to drive engagement with key audiences for our candidates in 2025 and beyond.
Candidate, PA HD-33
Candidate, MI HD-61
Candidate, AZ HD-17
Our one-of-a-kind digital voter turnout program focused on boosting early voting and vote-by-mail in swing states—PA, WI, MI, AZ, and NV—reaching 15.6M voters, signing up 263K voters, and covering Senate margin wins in MI and WI. By testing thousands of Meta ads and expanding to Reddit and YouTube, we ensured messaging resonated with key audiences, especially women of color. We expanded influencer and celebrity content and introduced tools to better engage low-propensity voters and drive creation of voting plans. This approach stabilized costs and boosted conversions later in the election cycle, unlike in 2020 and 2022.
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The number one reason people don’t vote is because it’s inconvenient or inaccessible. This year, we provided comprehensive support throughout the voting journey, from signing up to casting your ballot, guiding voters at every step of the way. Expanding our chat support played a crucial role in getting voters the information they needed to navigate the complex process of voting. This included personalized reminders and one-on-one conversations. We simplified the process and made it easy to find your polling location, and cast your ballot.
AI was instrumental in our strategy, helping categorize and prioritize voter messages in our real-time text support hotline. By integrating LLMs, we quickly identified message topics and routed them appropriately, allowing human agents to focus on complex voter needs. This streamlined approach improved response times and ensured voters received timely, accurate assistance from registration through Election Day. As a result, as we scaled and had more incoming support requests, response and resolution times dropped.
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We built our Learning Engine, incorporating 6 years of data, to optimize the email fundraising process, significantly reducing the human hours needed to run an effective email fundraising program. In a test comparing AI-assisted drafts using our systems to human-only drafts across multiple campaigns and states, our LLM-based approach saved an average of 34% in drafting time, while maintaining high key performance metrics—such as open rate, click rate, and donation rate. We’re continuing to optimize our AI systems to enhance efficiency and improve content strategy.
In order to win, we can't just do what worked in the past or perfect previous cycles’ strategies. Evolving and harnessing the power of digital marketing and data is more important than ever. In 2025, we aim to maintain and expand the Democratic majority in Virginia’s House of Delegates (51-49) with 40+ projects across websites, digital ads, influencer marketing, and email marketing to close margins in key races. Securing the majority, alongside a governorship flip, would achieve a Democratic trifecta in Virginia. Looking to 2026, our work will target flipping seats and protecting majorities, aiming to regain Michigan's trifecta, flip Pennsylvania’s Senate, and expand Democratic power in Texas, Georgia, and Ohio.
Keep an eye out for our 2024 Digital Ads Report in early 2025, and make sure to follow us on Instagram.
