Illustration by Mother Jones; Erika Goldring/TAS24/Getty; Jo Hale/Redferns/Getty; Michael Brochstein/Zuma

Earlier this month, The Lincoln Project aired an ad focused on abortion rights with a chilling line delivered by the narrator, a young woman, in a monologue addressed to her Trump-voting father: “You knew his policies would end my freedom , to my rights, to my life. ”, she said. “You chose hatred over me.”

THE announcementwhich depicts a woman dying in agony as she suffers complications during childbirth, was produced by the Lincoln Project to sway a demographic they dubbed “Dobbs Dads” – a group of men ready to vote to protect or restore the lives of their daughters. access to abortion – which may well be Trump’s downfall.

There is evidence of such a change in recent Marist discourse survey which showed that Vice President Kamala Harris was ahead of former President Donald Trump by 20 points among college-educated white men – a 5 point improvement on Biden’s margin in 2020 with the same demographics.

“We call them Dobbs Dads” tweeted Joe Trippi, a veteran Democratic strategist who works with the Lincoln Project. “And they flee to Harris. One (of) our most important target groups.

The nickname Dobbs Dads, of course, comes from the 2022 Supreme Court Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling in which the justices, led by three Trump appointees, effectively ended the federal right to access abortion. Following this decision, 13 states have outright banned abortion, mothers died due to lack of access to abortion, maternal deaths in Texas has doubled, infant deaths increased nationally, and Idaho Legislature disbanded committees charged with investigating the causes of maternal deaths, thereby obscuring the public’s understanding of the impact of this state’s abortion ban on mothers. Nearly two-thirds of the American population believes that abortion should be legal, including 61% of men according to Bench According to research, the rapid evolution of the legal regime has made the right to abortion one of the main issues in the elections.

Pregnancy-related medical trauma caused more men to vote against Trump, who refused to rule out signing a federal abortion ban, and for Harris, according to Stuart Stevens, another Lincoln Project adviser. , which would strive to restore the right to abortion. These men include, as Stevens recently said MSNBC, “More conservative voters than not, many of whom would check a box to say they are anti-abortion. But they are dismayed by the specter of these tragedies.”

“These are men who really pride themselves on being their daughter’s advocates,” Trippi says. “They suddenly think about what this means in terms of the Dobbs decision as they think about their daughter’s future and the world she would live in.”

The Lincoln Project says its Dobbs Dads strategy is based on research conducted by a sister organization, the Lincoln Democracy Institute. An IDL from April 2023 investigation of more than 17,000 voters helped their team focus on two voting groups they saw as ripe for persuasion: Dobbs Dads and another they dubbed Red Dawn Republicans — older GOP voters who give the priority to traditional international alliances, in particular against Russia.

Alex Shashlo, who helps run the Lincoln Project’s digital campaigns, said their “very focused approach to talking to dads about abortion” led them to choose female narrators for “Daisy” — the nightmarish ad set in a delivery room – and another similar spot, “This year.” The strategy was partially inspired by a viral video clip of Taylor Swift speaking with his father on taking a political stand ahead of the 2018 election. “If Taylor Swift said, ‘Hey, talk to your dad,’ to all of her followers, that would be a pretty powerful thing,” Trippi said. LDI’s research confirmed that the concept of girls discussing abortion with their fathers could be effective in reaching men.

In close elections, a targeted campaign could make all the difference. The Lincoln Project claims to have identified approximately 680,000 Dobbs Dads in the key states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. In a recent podcast, Trippi also reflected on the demographic potential to “surprise people in these Senate races like Florida, Texas, maybe Montana.”

“There is an opportunity here,” he said.