In the ad, a young woman gushes about the "Rick Scott" wedding dress—while her mother tries to persuade her to wear the "Charlie Crist."
The College Republicans spent nearly $1 million nationally on running these ads (and similar ones promoting Republicans in other states) online.
Now, the College Republicans are taking credit for Rick Scott's victory. In a thank you e-mail, Executive Director Matthew Donnellan said they knew that a "strong turnout from conservative youth voters would decide races"—and pointed to Florida, where the "youth turnout nearly doubled" from 2010.
We knew this would be an important, close race. That’s why we invested approximately $150,000 on advertising to persuadable 18-29 year olds online and invested in field staff on college campuses in Florida. With your help, we were able to cut the liberals' lead with young voters in half.Yes, they invested $150,000 in condescendingly telling young people that voting is like picking out a wedding dress—and Rick Scott won by one percentage point.
Did the youth turnout really "nearly double" from 2010 in Florida, when it was abysmal in the rest of the country—which helps explain why Democrats did so poorly?
Yes, it nearly doubled—according to exit polls, 18-29 year-olds were 14 percent of the Florida electorate compared to 8 percent in 2010, which bucked the national trend.
But the exit polls also showed these 18-29 year-olds supporting Crist over Scott by a 10-point margin, by far the most anti-Scott age group. (In fact, the only reason Scott won the election is that he beat Crist among voters 65 and older. Crist won every age group under 65.)
And a medical marijuana initative—which enjoyed strong support from young voters, but narrowly failed because older voters disapproved—may have been a stronger factor in getting out the youth vote than ads comparing voting to picking out a wedding dress.
Meanwhile, the College Republicans are gloating about their sexist ad campaign (which you really must watch to believe) as to why Florida re-elected a Governor who has sabotaged public universities. Go figure.