NAACP launches advertising campaign in SC to increase Black voter turnout
South Carolina’s Black voters are among the key voting blocs in the state particularly for Democratic candidates running for public office.
But the NAACP sees a prime opportunity to increase that turnout overall in South Carolina and in battleground states.
On Friday, the national civil rights group launched a new radio and digital advertising campaign — “Black Voices Change Lives” — to help increase Black voter turnout in Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Wisconsin ahead of the Nov. 3 general election.
The ads, starting with radio, will run through September in Charleston, Columbia, Greenville and Myrtle Beach markets, according to a NAACP spokesperson, who said the campaign is a low six-figure buy over three weeks in South Carolina.
A press release said the second phase of the ad spending will start in the fall and focus on those battleground states where data shows Black voters are the main factor in the outcome of an election.
The goal of the campaign is to increase Black voter turnout by more than 5% compared to 2016, the NAACP said.
Historically, South Carolina has not been an identified battleground state ahead of a presidential election.
But a NAACP spokesperson said that November is an “incredibly consequential” election for Black Americans, and that the NAACP is “working to mobilize as many Black voters as possible to sure their voices are heard up and down the ballot this November.”
Pew Research Center found that Black turnout actually declined for the first time in 20 years in 2016, down to 59.6% after reaching a high of 66.6% in 2012 when former President Barack Obama, the country’s first Black president, was on the ballot for a second term.
White voter turnout was higher in 2016 than in 2012 — 65.3% from 64.1% — according to Pew Research.
“Our nation is in a once-in-a-lifetime health and economic crisis. This pandemic shows just how important it is to elect people who stand with us and fire the ones who don’t,” NAACP president Derrick Johnson said in a statement. “It is not enough for any one of us to simply vote. In this time of crisis, each of us is obligated to make sure that all people in our communities vote.”
This story was originally published September 4, 2020 at 10:26 AM.
