How PCA Helped the Biden Campaign Lift Up Key Voices in Hard to Reach Communities

SOAPBOXX SITE

50,000minutes

of PCA videos viewed on Facebook leading up to Election Day

10compilations

of user videos made without editing or production teams

19dashboards

supported video collection by national, relational, and 17 individual state digital teams
In the 2020 presidential race, the Biden for President campaign prioritized healthcare access, COVID-19 solutions, small business empowerment, voting rights, and flipping crucial swing states. The Biden for President campaign garnered more votes than any campaign ever before and succeeded in flipping Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Challenge

The key players in the Biden for President campaign knew that in order to flip crucial swing states, they had to uplift voices from communities that aren’t typically represented during campaigns. They faced difficulties in coordinating with far-reaching communities such as people of color, women, and Republicans for Biden, plus physical issues with story collection due to COVID-19.
There are three features of PCA that helped deliver counties to Biden: organic distribution, ease of use, and the ability to collect and download raw footage.

Solution

The Biden for President headquarters handed the PCA tool down to state-level teams to collect voter stories. There are three features of PCA that helped deliver counties to Biden:
  • organic distribution
  • ease of use
  • the ability to collect and download raw footage
Organic distribution is the foundation of PCA. It allows for user generated content to be shared across personal networks of family members, friends, neighbors, and co-workers. Biden voters recorded their videos, shared them to on social media, and even texted links to record new videos to their friends. In counties where voters are typically undervalued, like rural areas, PCA provided a platform for undecideds to hear personal appeals/arguments from trusted, familiar members of their communities. The PCA tool is incredibly user-friendly, requiring no experience with video editing or producing – anyone with access to a phone or computer can participate. This was an advantage for the Biden for President campaign teams when collecting stories from voters of all backgrounds and expertise. The campaign teams downloaded raw video collected through PCA for user-generated ad content. Raw footage also helped create press releases, which were a large part of the state and local level campaign efforts, particularly for “Women for Biden” and “Vote by Mail.”

Featured Biden Harris videos collected through PCA

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Result

Democrats won Arizona for the first time since 1996 by flipping Maricopa and Pima counties for Biden. Arizona received the most PCA video submissions, with 70% of the videos coming from Maricopa County. Voters in Pennsylvania used PCA to express their pride in Biden’s home state. A majority of videos in the state came from Erie County, one of the two Pennsylvania counties that flipped. Celebrities and politicians also participated in Pennsylvania’s efforts. The team used PCA to coordinate with high-profile Biden voters and streamline their collaboration with the campaign. The Pennsylvania team also took advantage of PCA’s montage feature to quickly turn out compilation videos of supporters, a task that would have otherwise been impossible due to COVID-19. Michigan participants were not celebrities or influencers, but rather passionate members of their communities who used genuine, authentic messaging to influence their immediate connections. PCA generated heavy traffic in Kent, Musekgon, and Ottawa counties, an area of Michigan that voted much bluer in 2020 than in 2016 – blue enough for Biden to flip Kent county. The campaign was able to influence voters and leaders in the 50,000-strong Hmong-American community in Wisconsin, who were key voters in the election. Wisconsin also had ample participation from Democratic Party members, collecting a total of 112 videos from elected officials at all levels, whose videos organically reached nearly 5,000 accounts. PCA was instrumental in including the most diverse voices in the largest tent campaign in history, garnering not just more votes and any campaign ever, but also lifting up key voices and including them in the political process, in some cases for the first time. Ultimately, nearly 50,000 minutes of supporter-generated PCA videos were viewed on Facebook in the last 3 months of the campaign. That’s over 34 days of watching videos about why your friends and family support Biden for President.
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