Executive Summary

In Spring 2006, MoveOn.org Political Action initiated a campaign in a number of "second tier" congressional districts to demonstrate that these races are not only competitive, but can be nationalized through early intervention in the form of issues advertising. Across a range of districts -- CT-5, OH-15, VA-2, IN-2 - MoveOn.org Political Action placed significant buys from March  to June, making the case that the Republican incumbents had acted corruptly in a way that hurt their constituents. MoveOn.org made this case by connecting the contributions incumbents had taken from special-interest PACs with the votes they had taken to benefit the oil, pharmaceutical, and defense contracting industries.

Greenberg Quinlan Rosner conducted pre- and post-surveys to gauge the results of this advertising, which were also measured against a control district, IA-4. MoveOn.org Political Action also commissioned Survey USA to conduct parallel before-and-after Interactive Voice Response (IVR) surveys in these districts, as well as WV-2, another control district.

Overall, the campaign is a success story.

• MoveOn.org Political Action's goal was to "broaden the battlefield" by moving the races up to the top tier. Three out of four of these races have moved that way. The rankings of three of the districts on Greenberg Quinlan Rosner's ranking system (a compilation of Hotline, Cook, Sabato, and Rothenberg ratings) increased significantly. We believe that the advertising we did was a major factor in that shift. Amy Walter, an analyst for the Cook report, recently noted, the playing field is certainly expanding, as more Republicans are dragged down by Bush negatives. Cook added CT-5 to their watch list in the aftermath of the MoveOn advertising. In May, President Bush flew to VA-2 to help raise money for Thelma Drake, also targeted by MoveOn, because of White House concerns over the challenges the first-term incumbents face. As the Washington Post reported, "When some of the country's top political handicappers drew up their charts of vulnerable house members at the beginning of this year, Representative Thelma Drafke (R-VA.) was not among them. Now she is."

• The advertising forced Republican incumbents to place responsive buys, though our campaign was effective in spite of it. Moreover, it forced Republican incumbents such as Nancy Johnson, Chris Chocola and Deborah Pryce to purchase competing television advertising, likely before they were prepared to do so.

• We saw movement, beyond the margin of error, on key aspects of the incumbents imagery including overall favorability, honesty and corruption. In all of the Survey USA districts, we saw suggestive movement in the vote away from the incumbent, while the trend in the control districts was in the opposite direction. While shifts in the vote were within the margin of error, the movement it is mirrored in strong shifts in incumbent favorability and imagery - outside of the margin of error - that did not occur in the control districts

Methodology

GQR phone surveys involved two waves of research. In the first wave, we interviewed by phone a random sample of 500 likely voters in each district, including four test districts (CT-5, OH-15, VA-2, IN-2) and control districts (WV-2 and IA-4). The first wave was conducted March 26-28. The margin of error for a survey with a 500 sample is +/- 4.4 points. The GQR second wave involved a survey of 500 likely voters in CT-5 (test market) and IA-4 (control market). This research took place June 20-22.

In addition, SurveyUSA conducted four waves of research in multiple districts using IVR (Interactive Voice Response) technology. Their survey included a sample of 500 registered voters and approximately 400 likely voters. Two of these waves paralleled GQR surveys in timing (March 26-28 and June 20-22). Please see http://www.surveyusa.com/methodology.html for methodological details of IVR technology.

Key Findings

• MoveOn.org Political Action initiated a campaign in a number of "second tier" congressional districts to demonstrate that these races are not only competitive, but can be nationalized through early intervention in the form of issues advertising. Greenberg Quinlan Rosner conducted pre- and post-surveys to gauge the results of this advertising, which were also measured against a control district, IA-4.
  
• MoveOn.org Political Action's goal was to "broaden the battlefield" by moving the races up to the top tier. Three out of four of these races have moved that way.
• The advertising forced Republican incumbents to place responsive buys, though our campaign was effective in spite of it.
• We saw movement, beyond the margin of error, on key aspects of the incumbents imagery including overall favorability, honesty and corruption.