A collapsing economy and porous borders, or the dreaded Project 2025 and the loss of reproductive rights. These are the messages both parties are flooding Americans with as Election Day rapidly approaches.
But if Republicans want to reach the estimated 10 million gun owners who aren’t registered to vote, both hunting and pro-gun groups know they can’t do it with traditional messaging. A coalition of pro-gun groups believes these non-voters could sway elections and is leveraging hunting and firearms influencers, social media, and messages specifically aimed at gun owners to engage with non-voters. We are trying to
“Bill Clinton, like the Clinton campaign, acknowledged that the gun control vote cost Al Gore the White House, White House press secretary Joel Lockhart acknowledged. It was John Kerry’s White House. After Clinton’s gun ban passed in 1994, Democrats lost control of Congress in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Montana, Arizona and Nevada.” Larry Keene, the foundation’s senior vice president and general counsel, told The Daily Caller.
“we believe [gun owners] This can be a deciding factor, especially when the contrast is very strong. “The Democratic candidate wants to have a coronation and literally be crowned, and they want to send police to their homes to find out how they keep their guns and seize their firearms,” Keene added.
Former President Donald Trump himself believes that gun ownership could sway the election. At a recent gathering, he said: said He said the National Rifle Association showed him numbers on how often gun owners vote. “If you vote, no one can beat us,” Trump said.
No matter your reason for owning a firearm, whether it’s for hunting, self-defense, or simply exercising your constitutional rights, if you want to preserve your Second Amendment rights, follow the law. Gun owners will have a clear choice this fall. https://t.co/IisqXxUbb5
— NRA (@NRA) October 4, 2024
According to vote 4 americaMore than 10 million gun owners nationwide are not registered to vote. There are 515,277 people in Pennsylvania, and about 370,000 people each in Michigan and North Carolina, according to the report. Acquired data According to the New York Post. More than 500,000 gun owners are not registered to vote in Georgia, Wisconsin, Missouri and Virginia, and another 133,000 are not registered to vote in Arizona.
While these numbers may be disconcerting to Republicans, gun owners described to callers the skepticism in their communities about voting and politics in general. Some people believe that if they don’t want government involved in their business, they shouldn’t vote to get involved.
“I think we as conservatives and gun owners are resting on our laurels because we feel we have the Constitution and the truth is on our side. And we don’t know what the threat is. We don’t really recognize that even if we look behind the curtain of the gun control lobby, we now see how willing they are to usurp or destroy the Constitution to get their New World ways. , you’ll see that it’s starting to get exposed. So I think it’s a little bit of ignorance and a little bit of apathy that they don’t think that’s going to happen here.” Deanna Mueller, founder of Women for Gun Rights, told the Caller.
Mueller explained that he believes many gun owners don’t trust the integrity of the election process, which could deter some people from voting.
To counter this skepticism, pro-gun groups recognized that their messages could not mirror traditional political advertising. “It starts with identifying gun owners,” Keith Mark, a member of Hunter Nation and a self-described traditional Democrat, told callers.“Traditional, conservative values such as God, family, country, the Constitution, and the hunting lifestyle” and focus on them ahead of elections. But the secret, he said, lies in the platforms organizations use to get their messages to voters.
“It’s not just the message, it’s how you deliver it and who delivers it, so we rely heavily on finding influencers and finding celebrities,” Mark told the Caller.
“We’re not selling a product, we’re selling freedom. We’re selling their lifestyle. We’re selling the ability to be independent and not be bothered by government. Because… Because the people we hunt when we do polls are like, “Hey, I don’t want government involved in my business, so I’m not like that.” I’m going to go about their business. ‘Well, we figured out a way to message them and let them know, ‘Hey, listen, they’re going to come into your business.’ If you don’t vote once a year, they’re going to take over your business. ”
“So basically, guys, you need to get out of your tree stands, get out of your duck swamps, get out of your deer woods and pheasant fields, and go vote,” Mark says, adding that this group will never change demographics. It added that it would not force anyone to vote. Vote for a specific candidate.
Let your fellow real American hunters vote!
go to https://t.co/MLcuQUPzNGMy @realamericasvoice Spirit Campfire details the logic and common sense of truth.https://t.co/3xSbZaP8SB#truth #logic #common sense pic.twitter.com/TNj3J4SBxV
— Ted Nugent (@TedNugent) October 7, 2024
Along with the NRA, Hunter Nation is partnering with celebrities including: Mark spoke to Caller about Ted Nugent, Donald Trump Jr. (a well-known hunting enthusiast), and the Duck Dynasty organization. Similarly, Vote4America collaborates with prominent gun advocates like Brooke Enns, Sean Ryan, Andy Stumpf, Andy Frisella, Dan Hollaway, Sharmichael Singleton, and Jason Alden. He is encouraging gun owners to vote, senior adviser Baker Leavitt told the Caller.
Mark expects partnerships like this to yield great results.
According to Hunter Nation data, 416,085 gun owners in Wisconsin are low-risk voters, high-risk voters or newly registered voters. Of that total, the organization expects 54,196 participants, Mark said. Biden won the state by 20,600 votes in 2020.
In Michigan, the number of these potential voters is 452,471. The organization estimates there will be 70,142 votes in the 2024 election. Biden won the state in 2020 by 154,000 votes.
The group predicts it will have a big impact in Georgia, which Biden won by about 11,000 votes in 2020. Hunter Nation wants to eliminate 122,913 of the state’s more than 825,000 low profile or newly registered gun owners, Mark said.
Biden previously won Pennsylvania by about 80,000 votes, perhaps the most important state in the election. Hunting groups say their campaign plans to eliminate at least 58,000 low-grade gun owners.
Are you registered to vote?
.
Pennsylvania Secretary of State John Bingaman was out with his children Sunday. We want to ensure that you and your friends, family, and everyone you know have 40 days to vote. 40% of hunters don’t vote.register here https://t.co/dPQkJGvGTi pic.twitter.com/ZJdiAPtOIC
— Hunter Nation (@HunterNation) September 27, 2024
“What people miss about gun owners, especially gun owners, is that they’re not hyper-partisan and they’re not necessarily overly political. In the world of politics, experts say As an operative, I think we tend to think of this as like a really polarizing and divisive issue, but the reality is that for the vast majority of gun owners, they don’t own firearms. They have them in their homes. They grow with them. They have them for self-defense and it’s part of their way of life. ” katie pointer baney Executive Director of the U.S. Concealed Carry Association Lifesaving Fund told the caller about GOTV’s efforts. She added that part of the group’s message is to urge gun owners to continue to exercise their freedoms and participate in the political process.
Hunter Nation isn’t the only group operating in Pennsylvania. Scott Pressler and his organization, Early Vote Action, are trolling gun shows and shooting ranges across the state to register gun owners to vote. (Related: Hunters, truckers, and the Amish: Inside Republicans’ ‘aggressive’ new vote-tracking plan for November)
“handAs was the case his year, we went to the Great American Outdoors Show. And that week, that show alone registered 319 voters. I have been to the gun show in Monroeville several times. We have been to the Philadelphia Expo Center several times and can confidently say that we have registered thousands of Second Amendment supporters at these gun shows this year alone,” said Pressler. he told the caller. Pressler previously told the Caller that his organization was in contact with the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign regarding get-out-the-vote efforts in the state.
Some organizations hold gun shows and leverage hunting experts, while others rely on their large membership and resources to mobilize more pro-gun voters.
“We are working to reach unregistered gun owners in swing states that will determine the outcome of the election, and we are reaching out to unregistered voters, for example, in eight figures, with messages encouraging them to register. Mr. Keene provided callers with information on our gunvote.org website to find out where they could register, how they could register, and where their voting locations were. “We’re trying to get information out to individuals and other people.”
And while most groups are prohibited by nonprofit law from working with campaigns, Trump campaign officials told the Caller that they are working with America’s gun owners. Eric Pratt, executive vice president of Gun Owners of America, told the Caller there is a network of about 2 million gun owners targeting them ahead of the election through newsletters and national conventions. .
Trump officials themselves told callers that the campaign is focused on using mail and text campaigns to target and support gun owners throughout state parties.It highlights what a gun grabber Harris was throughout his career. ” In May, the Trump team launched the Gun Owners for Trump coalition, led by more than 50 Olympic athletes, firearms industry leaders, and public advocates. (Related: Harris says she owns a Glock, but doing so could land her in jail in her home state)
The group’s efforts could all boil down to one thing: whether gun owners trust the electoral process.
Nearly every gun organization the caller spoke to said gun owners’ lower propensity to vote may be due in part to a lack of trust in the voting process. This is an issue that the Trump campaign is trying to directly address with its election integrity efforts. (Related: Exclusive: RNC hires hundreds of thousands of volunteers and thousands of lawyers to ensure election integrity)
NEW: Republicans talk tough about election integrity, but really, how different will 2024 be from 2020?
of @DailyCaller Investigations into what the Party is doing to prevent another legal bloodshed have yielded mixed results.
My latest: https://t.co/g5hIsm9gQc
— Reagan Reese (@reaganreese_) March 15, 2024
A Trump campaign official told the Caller that the Republican Party is focused on election integrity in the 2024 election cycle, filing more than 100 lawsuits, securing numerous legal victories in battleground states, and securing campaign efforts in the 2024 election cycle. It said it was employing a coalition of tens of thousands of pollsters to help. “”A giant human intelligence operation that identifies any problems and notifies the parties involved.” Until 2018, the party had been under a consent decree that barred it from launching any honest electoral efforts for nearly 40 years.
“The role of voters is much clearer across the board, and there’s a much larger organized effort in place where they know what to look for and are prepared. There are far fewer drop boxes. Delivery boxes. There are cameras in place, which didn’t exist four years ago,” the official told the caller.
“All of these things should give people great confidence that what happened last time won’t happen again this time. And this time too, the world is watching,” they added.
