If you’ve already started to see political campaign texts slide into your inbox, don’t expect them to disappear anytime soon.
According to a recent report from Axios, Alex Quilici – CEO of call-blocking company YouMail – said he expects these test messages will “go nuts in 2024” as we get closer to the November election. As of this week, we’re still in primary season.
“This election season, like those before, will likely lead to an increase in calls and texts from political campaigns,” said the Federal Communications Commission.
While President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are considered the frontrunners for their respective parties, they do have some competition.
Trump has continued to beat former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley in the primaries. Biden had 91 delegates as of Tuesday and challenger Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) had zero.
Independent candidates who could be sending texts your way include Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.; Cornel West and Jill Stein, said Reuters.
With more millennials and Gen Z voters casting ballots, campaigns have to find ways to reach them that make sense, said Quilici. Back in 2019, Forbes reported on millennials’ disdain for phone calls and last year CBS News reported that Gen Z was even developing a fear of phone calls.
“We already see more use of texts than in the past for fundraising, for notifications of town halls, for notification of events, for opinion surveys,” Quilici said.
For example, data from Robokiller indicates that 15 billion political texts were received by Americans in 2022, a 158% increase over the previous year. Most of those texts (70%) included Republican-related keywords. Campaign spokesperson Anna Kelly told Axios that texts are a “critical” part of the RNC’s efforts to get voters to the polls.
As texts increased, political campaign calls decreased by 57% to 384 million.
Scam calls might be one reason that younger generations are less likely to pick up the phone. Audacy reported just this month on scam robocalls targeting New Hampshire primary voters that featured an AI generated dupe of Biden’s voice encouraging voters not to head to the polls. Cease-and-desist letters were sent to the originators of the calls.
FCC restrictions should limit some communications from political campaigns.
“As text messages generally go to mobile phones, robotexts require the called party’s prior express consent,” the commission explained. “However, political text messages can be sent without the intended recipient’s prior consent if the message’s sender does not use autodialing technology to send such texts and instead manually dials them.”
According to WCNC, even people on the Do Not Call registry can receive political texts.
“Political messages are considered to be protected free speech,” said Will Ackerman, vice president of Digital for Vimware IT Consulting.
Axios said campaigns can access phone numbers through databases made up of public records. These are managed by brokers who sell the data to campaigns, the outlet added.
For those who are sick of checking their phone just to find that their latest notification is a campaign text, the FCC has a list of tips for stopping unwanted calls and texts.
