The Case: After Senator Kelly’s 2020 victory against Martha McSally to serve the remainder of the late John McCain’s term, the campaign continued to plan and strategically prepare for a highly competitive 2022 re-election campaign. 

Due to a late and crowded Republican primary, the campaign had to prepare plans according to their potential opponents - Attorney General Mark Brnovich, Wealthy businessman Jim Lamon and Peter Thiel- backed Blake Masters. Once Republican Blake Masters became the Republican candidate for Senate, the campaign knew they had to disqualify him as a serious representative of Arizona by using his own words demonstrating his misogynistic, racist, and offensive discriminatory behavior in advertising. The campaign understood that an anti-Masters vote wasn't going to lead to victory. To that end the campaign had to also communicate what Mark Kelly had accomplished for Arizona during his short time in office and what he would continue to do to put Arizona first if elected to a full term. 

Our Role: The campaign once again turned to Potomac Waves Media to build a paid media campaign to produce Spanish-language advertising to engage the Latinx community early. Potomac Waves Media wrote and produced TV and radio advertisements, targeting the large Latino population in Arizona. PWM crafted the messaging for the series of Spanish-language ads to intentionally reintroduce Mark Kelly to the community, highlighting his key accomplishments in the Senate and using validators to connect Senator Kelly to his Latino constituents. Potomac Waves Media ensured that the content was culturally competent and also assisted in creating content for the digital program.

The Results: This Arizona U.S. Senate seat stayed blue, with Mark Kelly defeating Blake Masters, 51.4% to 46.5%. In the 2022 election cycle, Mark Kelly earned 58% of the Latino vote, demonstrating that the outreach in these communities effectively changed the outcome of this race, allowing Democrats to hold the Senate.