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The Campaign

Founded in 2008 by Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker Lee Hirsch (Bully), Local Voices is
an award-winning Democratic PAC that offers a unique and effective political advertising model.

Center-Stage for Local Voters

Local Voices creates campaign ads in the battleground counties of battleground states that feature local voices sharing their authentic political views and endorsements in their own words. 

These hyper-targeted ads feature genuine stories of local supporters, designed to persuade undecided voters.

Since 2008, Local Voices has produced over 200 campaign ads, winning white working-class votes for Democrats. Over the past 16 years, we’ve become experts in communicating to these key demographics through breakthrough ads, handling the entire process in-house—from casting and filming to producing and developing distribution strategies for both earned and paid media.

This election cycle, we filmed 7 voters in Pennsylvania supporting Harris/Walz from key rural counties
– where community ties run deep and Main Street matters. 

 

 

In these ads, rural voters not only see their hometowns and hear from trusted messengers, but they create a unique permission structure by demonstrating that Harris and Walz care about values Pennsylvanians hold dear. In these challenging areas, we hope to turn a total of 10,000-30,000 votes our way for the state.

Our 30- and 60-second spots are strategically targeted within and around the subject’s county using contextualized programmatic buys. We use multiple data stacks and tech platforms to achieve high video completion rates.

Watch Our Ads

An Effective Model

  • “I felt like [Jackie] knows what she is talking about and have heard of her in the area!"

    2024 PA Voter

  • “He did come across as a real person and that stuck with me. You’re drawn into him and then you have to think for a minute about what he’s saying.”

    2020 Voter

  • “It’s more close to home – it has a different impact. As opposed to someone who was from New York or something.”

    Voter

  • "You don’t see that very often. Most ads are at a national level. I haven’t seen anything local. Personal."

    Voter

In 2024, Swayable and GrowProgress tested Local Voices’ local, trusted messengers distribution strategy with videos from our cohort of rural Pennsylvanians. Their results showed between 3.2-10% significant increases towards Kamala favorability – surpassing the 0.7% median benchmark for other advocacy ads. 

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    All surveyed voters’ likelihood to vote for Kamala Harris saw a 3.2 point significant increase, with a 7.0 point significant increase specifically with independent voters
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    4.5 significant increase in voter choice towards Kamala Harris from Republican voters who voted for Donald Trump in 2020
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    Jackie Root’s home county of Tioga saw a statistically significant increase of 7.6 points in all voters. In Crawford County (area with high concentrations of gas and oil leases), Jackie’s video saw a significant increase of 13.2 points in Harris favorability amongst Independent voters
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    Harold Shaulis and Jackie Root’s ads each saw a +10-point net effect

In 2020, OpenLabs tested our distribution strategy using our 30 second Michael Held ad and 60 second Kevin Shilling ads, which saw 1.3% and 1.2% absolute lifts towards Biden, respectively.

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    “1.3% is some of the highest we’ve seen in October. And Michael is even more impressive as it’s only 30 seconds.” - OpenLabs

In 2016, acclaimed research firm maslanksy + partners tested our pilot spot against high profile ads from the Trump and Hillary campaigns, as well as Priorities USA, with Republican and independent voters.

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    When played head-to-head with other ads, the Local Voices ads drove the highest recall
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    The ad's inclusion of a local voice made the ad stand out from typical political attacks, with voters describing it as unique, authentic, convincing, and motivating.

In 2012, Lake Research Partners reported that Local Voices ads and distribution strategy demonstrated:

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    More than 45% of respondents were more likely to vote for Barack Obama
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    63% said the ads motivated them to vote
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    61% of respondents found the ads credible; 10 points higher than traditional ad executions

Looking Forward

Local Voices will continue to focus its efforts on creating opportunities for residents of battleground states to share their stories.