Third-Party Candidate Awareness

Based on polling and analytics showing that the third-party candidate vote share could be the decisive factor in the U.S. Senate race, the Bollier for Kansas campaign launched a low-key, third-party Libertarian candidate “education” campaign. The aim was to show voters that there were multiple candidates with conservative positions in the race and persuade Republican-leaning voters to vote for the third-party candidate instead of the Republican opponent, Roger Marshall.

By optimizing the video for a 50% video completion rate, we maximized the audience that would only see the third-party candidate’s section.

GPS identified voters with the potential to be part of a “pro-Trump surge” vote that might consider voting for Trump and then rolling off or skipping voting in the Senate race. We served the universe a video that highlighted the third-party candidate’s conservative and pro-Republican views first, followed by a section highlighting Dr. Bollier’s views, and finally wrapped up with Marshall. Using simple visuals and a matter-of-fact tone, the video described Buckley as a veteran who would repeal gun laws, slash spending, and abolish income taxes.

As expected, the race was high-turnout with a large surge in Trump voters. In the US Senate race, Buckley ultimately received 5% of the total, 36,678 higher than the Libertarian running for President. Meanwhile, Marshall received 42,248 votes fewer than Trump did for President, a roll-off of 5.6%, strongly suggesting that a large number of Trump voters voted for Buckley rather than Roger Marshall.