Emily's List: Women Can Stop Trump Campaign

For more than 30 years, Emily’s List has fought to get pro-choice, Democratic women elected to office. At no time was this mission more important than in the presidential election of 2016. The GOP had just chosen Donald Trump as their candidate–an anti-choice misogynist, infamous for calling women “fat pigs,” “dogs,” and “bimbos.” Polls showed that one in four people aged 18-35 were still undecided or didn’t intend to vote at all. So ART NOT WAR created an online social media campaign for Emily’s List called #WomenCanStopTrump, urging millennial women to vote.

We launched the #WomenCanStopTrump hashtag at a Breaking Through–a living room influencer event held at the Brooklyn home of ART NOT WAR’s Sarah Sophie Flicker. The event featured a panel discussion with prominent feminists like Jamia Wilson, Sally Kohn, Jess McIntosh, Sarah Jones and Rachel Sklar, discussing the sexism of Trump’s campaign. We then created four targeted videos on different issues featuring actresses like Zoë Kravitz, Maura Tierney, Rose McGowan and many others. Emily’s List released the videos strategically over the three months leading up to the election. Finally, we organically promoted the campaign on social media, creating a Facebook feature allowing users to overlay their profile pictures with “#WomenCanStopTrump.”

With a social media reach of over 52 million, #WomenCanStopTrump became one of Emily’s List’s most successful campaigns ever. Our four videos alone earned more than 30 million views. We earned significant coverage on blogs, social media and traditional press. The hashtag went viral. And by the time of the election, the percentage of millennials voting for Clinton more than doubled, resulting in a popular vote victory of almost three million. Sadly, we all know who won the electoral college. And while we admittedly didn’t plan it this way, the #WomenCanStopTrump hashtag is still remarkably active on social media.