Florida U.S. Senate challenger launches WhatsApp channel to reach voters : NPR

Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, the former U.S. House Democrat now challenging Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott for the Senate, has launched a new campaign on WhatsApp to reach voters and attack a sea of disinformation.

The direct messaging operation is part of a broader attempt to close the gap in a race that has grown increasingly tight. Democrats face an uphill battle undoing Republican gains in the state in recent years, particularly in an election where former President Trump is expected to add to GOP turnout in the state. However, Democrats think they can move the needle, particularly with Latino voters, through smartphones.

 “It’s particularly created to target Latino voters across the state to provide them with accurate, factual information coming straight from the source,” Mucarsel-Powell, the sole Latina candidate running for U.S. Senate this year, told NPR.

The messaging campaign includes two channels on the messaging platform WhatsApp — one in English and another in Spanish.

The effort also coincides with a similar launch by the presidential campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris, which now has its own bilingual channel to reach Latino voters. In their case, the Harris campaign said it was a first-of-its kind in a presidential contest. 

The encrypted platform is a free messaging app that is particularly popular among immigrants, and especially Latinos, to communicate through texts and calls domestically and internationally. With campaigns increasingly looking to use the app, they hope their network will grow with voters as updates are shared by users.

Mucarsel-Powell argues WhatsApp will let her directly reach Florida’s Hispanic community, often a target of disinformation. A Pew Research report found 46% of Hispanic Americans use the messaging program compared to a quarter of Americans. It’s used by 23% of Black Americans and 16% of white Americans, the group found.

“It’s very easy to forward, and it’s actually one of the reasons why there’s been so much disinformation, because of that easy feature, the easy forwarding feature,” Mucarsel-Powell said. “And so we wanted to have our own channels to allow our own supporters to just forward the contact to their networks across the state.”

Mucarsel-Powell is Democrats’ first Spanish-speaking candidate for U.S. Senate in Florida. And the WhatsApp effort is part of an overall campaign strategy to reach Latino voters who sat out previous elections, which includes dozens of English and Spanish language campaign events so far as well as ads in both languages.

BOLD PAC, the campaign arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, has identified the Florida Senate race as a top target to address disinformation and reach Latino voters. In the last presidential election in 2020, Mucarsel-Powell and others raised alarm with congressional members over misinformation on WhatsApp and Facebook that was reaching voters.

Democrats have long argued that Republicans have helped spread misinformation through their campaigns, while Republicans have argued the opposite.

Mucarsel-Powell’s campaign faces a tough challenge trying to unseat Scott, the first-term senator now seeking re-election after previously serving as Florida governor.

Now the home state Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump, Florida has largely turned red in recent years. However, Democrats argue their voters have been energized by the Harris presidential campaign and national issues, such as abortion access, which will be on Florida’s November ballot.