The 2nd Amendment and gun rights remain top-of-mind for millions of voters across the nation, hunters and sportsmen specifically.
Identifying those audiences and understanding their demographic makeup, their voting history, and their motivations lessens the challenge of raising awareness, persuading them, and activating them when data shows you the way.
The Majority Strategies data team takes a closer look at this important audience of hunters in today’s data-focused #StrategySession.
BACKGROUND
There are over 20 million voters across America who have been observed or modeled to be hunters.
Those 20 million voters comprise over 9.3 million households.
51% are modeled Republicans.
30% are modeled Democrats.
19% are modeled Unaffiliated/other voters.
Who are these voters? 15% have a veteran in their household. Over 16% donate to wildlife preservation causes. 14.5% are modeled political activists.
Over 53% are active on social media.
PROBLEM
Too many hunters are sitting out key elections as anti-hunting and anti-2nd Amendment forces in both Washington, DC, and state capitols across the country push legislation that would restrict their ability to pursue their sport.
86% of registered active hunters voted in the 2020 general election. This jumped to a 90% turnout rate amongst Modeled Republicans, who turned out at a 4% higher rate than Democrat hunters.
Despite Republican hunters turning out at a higher rate, over 1,000,000 hunters (10%) stayed home in 2020. In the 2018 midterm, 19% of Republican hunters did not cast a ballot (over 1.9 million voters).
For both the 2018 midterm and the 2020 general election, the lowest turnout rate was seen amongst those unaffiliated/independent voters. In 2020, 23% of these voters did not cast a ballot in the general election, and 42% did not vote in the 2018 midterm.
SOLUTION
The solution is a coordinated marketing campaign that identifies distinct hunting audiences, raises awareness, persuades, and activates them on public policy issues.
Identifying the right audience is the first step to helping realize the political potential of the sportsmen community.
For example, modeling suggests that the unaffiliated/independent voters in the hunter audience lean conservative. With the right messaging, light persuasion and turnout treatments could be effective in turning these voters out.
Interested in learning more? Reach out to the Majority Strategies team today for the full playbook on how to reach hunters in your district.
With over 20 years of experience, Majority Strategies offers a wide range of grassroots advocacy solutions, driven by data and analytics, and designed to move real people through the decision-making process of awareness, persuasion, and activation by using a highly creative messaging and omni-channeled content distribution, including digital, mobile, and print advertising. We customize solutions based on the client’s needs and objectives.