WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE? APPARENTLY, A LOT: Clinton Vulnerable to Attack Ads Among Millenials. A Republican research firm conducted a randomized-controlled trial with over 1,000 18-to-34-year-old respondents, seeking to determine how effective anti-Hillary attack ads were among young voters. A “treatment group” was shown an anti-Hillary attack ad, and a placebo-control group saw a non-political Coca-Cola commercial. The firm then asked the young participants to “vote” for President. The results were fairly significant.
After viewing just one attack ad, support for Hillary Clinton slipped 5, 7, and 8 points with millennial voters in matchups against Donald Trump, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.
Control Attack Impact Trump 34.6% 39.4% 4.8% Cruz 37.7% 46.0% 8.4% Rubio 43.8% 50.6% 6.8%
Here’s the video:
The takeaway from the research firm?
Younger voters were key to Barack Obama’s victories, of course, and Adam Schaeffer, chief science officer of Evolving Strategies, said Clinton appears to be surprisingly vulnerable with that demographic, especially given that the ad used in the test “was pretty lame and muddled in my opinion, but was the best thing out there.” . . .
We already know that younger voters favor Clinton’s Democratic primary rival Sen. Bernard Sanders by large margins – and that millennials don’t reliably turn out to vote.
But Schaeffer argues that the findings should concern the Clinton campaign because she will need those voters to win. The attack ad used in the test, which was sponsored by the Stop Hillary PAC, focuses on Clinton’s handling of the deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi — an issue that isn’t particularly potent with younger voters, who generally aren’t as concerned about terrorism as older voters. . . .
[Because Clinton is already very well known], she should be more impervious to an attack that this one test suggests she might be. “It’s hard to move an incumbent, and we thought Clinton would test much more like an incumbent,’’ given how long she’s been on the national stage, Schaeffer said.
I don’t see any indications that Hillary Clinton will motivate young people enough to vote. I think it’s safe to say that she has lost that portion of the Obama coalition.
But do such attack ads make a difference with middle aged or older voters who lean independent or even toward the Democrats? That’s the question.