Amber Douglas wanted to ask Vivek Ramaswamy about his outreach to young voters like herself. Douglas, a 33-year-old lifelong Iowa resident, first caucused in 2008, when she was 17, for then-Sen. Barack Obama, and voted for Democrats in every subsequent election until 2022, when she voted for Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds. In this year’s caucuses, she plans to support Ramaswamy.
Yet as she asked her question on Friday to Ramaswamy, she made a biting observation about the dozens gathered here: There were more members of the media in attendance than young voters, a fact that caused her some concern.
Douglas personifies the young, independent-minded voters and first-time Republican caucusgoers Ramaswamy has been working to engage throughout the campaign. But Douglas said she felt disheartened by her lack of peers at the event.
“I really wish that, like, there were more of me,” she said after the town hall. “It’s sad to me that there was more press in seats than young voters.”
Despite the underwhelming showing in Ames, the Ramaswamy campaign heads into the final week of campaigning ahead of the Iowa caucuses by betting they can turn out more voters like Douglas on the night of. The campaign is investing in a full-tilt strategy to engage what it sees as its core constituency, largely made up of traditionally low-propensity voters, with targeted advertising, robust get-out-the-vote efforts along with nonstop grassroots campaigning, all in an effort to pull off what Ramaswamy predicts will be a “major surprise” on January 15.
The campaign recently pivoted its advertising strategy away from television advertising, a staple of campaigns, and is instead leaning into targeted digital advertising along with mailers and radio ads, a senior official with the Ramaswamy campaign told CNN. Those messages are supported by a team of thousands of volunteers…
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