This week, the Center for Western Priorities released two new video ads highlighting the Mountain West’s growing outdoor voting bloc — estimated to be 2 million voters strong — which is poised to play an out-sized role in 2020 elections. The ads are part of a six-figure ad buy that includes cable news stations in the Washington, DC area and digital ads in Arizona, Colorado, Montana, Nevada and New Mexico.
“Mailboxes” personifies the West’s outdoor voting bloc, featuring outdoor enthusiasts who live and breathe the issues they care about. In it we see a whitewater kayaker, trail runner, and a mountain climber in action, each of them carrying a ballot in hand. Along their treks, each individual drops their ballot into a mailbox, symbolizing the unique role outdoor issues play in the choices Western voters make. To voters in the Mountain West, protecting open spaces is deeply personal—because the outdoors define ways of life in the region.
In the current political climate,the “Voting Booth” ad shows the ways in which public lands unite voters in the West. The ad shows nine individuals, diverse in race and age, hiking separately through a lush open space. As a narrator speaks about the two million outdoor voters who “stand together to protect our lands,” we see their separate paths coverage as they assemble around a voting booth, united in their support for the outdoors and public lands issues.
The Center for Western Priorities’ recent Winning the West 2020 poll shows that this year, outdoor issues will play an even more decisive role in the outcome of close races. In the midst of a global pandemic, Mountain West voters’ connection to the outdoors has never been deeper and support for public lands conservation is growing. 81 percent of Western voters say national public lands, parks, and wildlife issues are important to them in deciding which candidate to vote for in Presidential and Congressional elections. The importance of public lands, parks and wildlife issues increased during the COVID-19 pandemic for 34 percent of voters, while remaining durable for the rest.
Alignment in the West behind pro-conservation positions translates into bipartisan support for policies to keep public lands protected, funded and safe. The 30×30 plan to protect 30 percent of America’s land and water by 2030 receives support from 75 percent of Western voters. 64 percent support the goal of making public lands a net zero source of carbon pollution so the positive impacts of forests and land in creating clean air can outweigh the carbon pollution caused by oil, gas and coal extraction.
In a divided political environment, it is particularly noteworthy that the John D. Dingell Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act and the Great American Outdoors Act are among the few pieces of non-COVID-19-related legislation to be passed by large bipartisan margins and signed into law recently.
The new ads are part of the Center for Western Priorities’ Winning the West project. Over the past several election cycles, Winning the West has documented public land conservation as a winning campaign issue, due to a growing number of bipartisan Westerners who vote to keep the West’s public lands clear, protected, and accessible.
For more information, visit westernpriorities.org. To speak with an expert on public lands, contact Aaron Weiss at 720-279-0019 or aaron@westernpriorities.org. Sign up for ‘Look West’ to get daily public lands and energy news sent to your inbox.
Aaron Weiss is Media Director for the Center for Western Priorities.