As we veer toward Missouri’s general election cycle, I’ve noticed that there’s a very, very popular way for campaigns to try to connect to voters: text messaging.
On the day before Missouri’s primary, I received a flood of text messages from candidates for governor, lieutenant governor, treasurer, secretary of state and attorney general.
Some of the texts were fairly general: "Hey, vote for Candidate A because Candidate A is going to make Missouri amazing!” Others sought to bring down their adversaries, with some gubernatorial candidates even attaching video files of nasty attack ads.
In some respects, this strategy was effective at getting my attention — especially since our household got rid of cable a year ago and I don’t watch much television. But the texting became so frequent near the end of the campaign that I seriously thought about throwing my phone in the River Des Peres to escape the deluge of rhetoric.
Thankfully, I resisted that urge to destroy my phone. I wouldn’t want to deprive St. Louis Public Radio’s audience of Instagram videos that have featured me wearing a cowboy hat at the State Fair and teleporting from place to place with the new clothes steamer that my mother-in-law purchased for me for my 40th birthday.
But I digress.
It appears I wasn’t alone in my frustration. I put out a post on X earlier this month asking our listeners if they’ve received a lot of political text messages. And the response was frankly overwhelming — overwhelmingly negative:
Yes, I keep texting “stop” but many of them don’t stop, the same message frequently just comes from a different number. As a former candidate, I understand the need to get one’s message out, but this election it has been out of control. Especially the negative ads.
— Sara Rachel Walsh (@SaraForMissouri) August 6, 2024
YES. And I’m a longtime Democratic voter who’s been getting Republican texts for gubernatorial, AG, and SoS races. Why waste their money on me!
— Amy K. H. - Joyful Warrior Princess (@akhammerman) August 6, 2024
I have! Both parties, on about the same pace as you. I hate it but I’m kinda impressed! pic.twitter.com/bIWQlIKvvq
— Deerwood Realty, with enthusiasm (@DeerwoodRealty) August 6, 2024
Some elected officials say texting is a more cost-effective version of campaign mailers — since the major financial outlay here is obtaining a list of phone numbers. State Sen. Travis Fitzwater of Callaway County wrote: “I'm an aggressive ‘Stop’ replier to these. It's why I only get a few here and there anymore. But, we did use it in our campaign two years ago with decent returns, but we used them with engaging content not just text. So, I get why they're used.”
A growing trend
James Harris is a Republican political consultant. Many of his candidates in this year’s primary cycle used text messaging. Some texts contained full advertisements while others may have included messaging that appear on mailers.
Harris said candidates use text messages for a simple reason: They get people’s attention.
“We're almost like Pavlov's dog now, if the phone vibrates, we check it, right?” Harris said. “Most people have their phone either in their pocket within arm's reach, in a bag or in a purse. And many people sleep with their phones nearby as they continue maybe to cut the cords from traditional land-based phones. And so, we know from a political perspective, voters have those phones in close proximity to them. So it makes it a great avenue to communicate with them.”
Harris added that the way campaigns are texting changed over the past few election cycles. It was only relatively recently that campaigns included photos or graphics in their messages. Now, he said, campaigns are including videos of campaign advertisements — primarily because a lot of voters switched from cable to streaming services.
But Harris also acknowledges that texting can turn voters off — especially if they’re too frequent or they’re too negative. And he also conceded that they may not always reach people they need to turn out in elections.
“One of the challenges with texting is depending on the voter file and the data you're getting, potentially a third to 35% of cell numbers are not accurate, so it's not a complete match,” Harris said.
One other downside? Harris points out that Android phones filter certain text messages as spam. That feature isn’t available for the iPhone yet, but given how Apple seems to copy a lot of Android features — a filter is probably just around the corner. And there are also Federal Communications Commission rules in place that could give campaigns pause before engaging in rampant texting.
But for now, political text messaging is here to stay — and may come back with a vengeance as Nov. 5 creeps closer.
Hopefully, I can have enough self-control so that my phone stays by my side instead of in the Mississippi River.
“St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Ulaa Kuziez, Miya Norfleet, Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski, Elaine Cha and Alex Heuer. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr. Send questions and comments about this story to talk@stlpr.org.
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