Progressive Orgs Leveraging Ketanji Brown Jackson Confirmation

Several progressive organizations are launching a seven-figure ad campaign aimed at Black voters in the wake Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation to the Supreme Court last week.

CBS News first reported on Monday that the groups, Building Back Together, the Black Women’s Leadership Collective and She Will Rise, are spending $1 million to air a 30-second spot called “Changed” that points out that President Joe Biden was responsible for nominating Jackson to the Court. It will run in Wisconsin, Georgia and Pennsylvania, all states where Republicans are trying to flip Democrat-held Congressional seats in the mid-terms.

From CBS News

The campaign will also include in-person grassroots events, such as block parties, to amplify the coalition’s message with local partners in Atlanta, Milwaukee and Philadelphia. In Washington D.C., She Will Rise collaborated with several groups and the city to host a block party and the unveiling of a mural showcasing Jackson alongside her personal heroine Constance Baker Motley, who was the first Black woman to become a federal judge.

“Black women make up less than two percent of the federal judiciary currently so we have a lot of work to do, but I want to commend this administration,” She Will Rise co-founder Kim Tignor told CBS News earlier this year. “This woman’s work will impact generations. And I think that a lot of times it goes unsaid or unnoticed, the impact that the Supreme Court has on your day-to-day life.”

The coalition’s campaign joins a list of similar efforts by left-leaning groups that hope to leverage the timing of Jackson’s confirmation to influence Black voters to come out for Democrats in this fall’s midterm elections.

Last week, The Root reported that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is launching a digital ad campaign in Black media outlets using similar messaging. That campaign will run in the Atlanta Voice, Jacksonville Free Press, Triangle Tribune in North Carolina, Philadelphia Tribune and Milwaukee Courier; the total amount of the ad spend was undisclosed.

The DSCC announced in September that it would pour $30 million into a midterm ground effort in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.