an independent expenditure affiliate of the Forward Party<\/a> that was started as an alternative to the major parties and has backed candidates across the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cThe effort that we\u2019re doing really stands for the proposition that independent candidates around the country need a boost and we believe there\u2019s really a hunger among perhaps a majority of all the voters in our country for an alternative to the two-party system,\u201d said Craig Snyder, political director of the Forward Party Victory Fund.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The messages ask \u201cHad enough of people thinking they own your vote no matter what? For Congress, Vote Independent candidate Dennis Mahoney!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a video, a man – who Snyder says is a voter in the 3rd Congressional District – says, \u201cI\u2019m a Democrat, not a Socialist.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rabb identifies as a Democratic Socialist.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The messages also claim Rabb, who is Black, \u201cwas chosen by a majority of White voters to represent most of the black folks in Philly. Chris Rabb lost the\u00a0black vote to Sharif Street, but they expect black folks to vote Rabb anyway!\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked whether that kind of messaging could turn off voters and why race was brought into the messaging, Snyder said, \u201cLook, I think in today\u2019s polarized politics you\u2019re going to turn some people off no matter what you do. The key thing is are you telling the truth and we are telling the truth.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Asked about the data to back up those claims, Snyder pointed to the margins in precincts within the district.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can really just look at the map of where the votes came from and determine the majority, the racial composition of the majority of the people in those precincts,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After NBC10 shared the planned content with Rabb, he pointed to his victory in the 3rd district primary this spring.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cA super PAC can buy ads, but it can\u2019t rewrite what Democrats across this district decided in May. We won 24 of the district\u2019s 37 wards, including eight majority-Black wards, with a grassroots coalition that reflects the full diversity of Philadelphia\u2019s 3rd Congressional District,\u201d Rabb said in a statement. \u201cOur support reached across neighborhoods and communities, including some of the highest-turnout majority-Black voting divisions in the district.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rabb\u2019s statement continued:\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cNo community\u2019s vote should ever be taken for granted, and no one should try to divide our neighbors along racial lines for political gain. I\u2019m focused on bringing people together, continuing to earn their trust, and fighting for all the people of this district as their next member of Congress,\u201d Rabb said.<\/p>\n
Mahoney said he first became aware of the texts from NBC10. Under FEC guidelines, independent expenditures are not coordinated with candidates or campaigns.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAs Independents, we are focused on bringing people together to solve real problems.\u00a0Our campaign continues to focus on putting servant leadership back in politics, bringing people together, ending division, and advocating for every Philadelphian to live a\u00a0flourishing\u00a0life,\u201d Mahoney said in a statement to NBC 10.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The group is aiming to reach tens of thousands of voters with the messages, which are scheduled to be rolled out on Tuesday. Snyder said they are aiming for voters in the political middle \u201cwho are going to look at a Chris Rabb candidacy and see…the same kind of extremism that we see.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Snyder declined to say how much the campaign will cost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some Philadelphia voters could start getting text messages this week promoting an independent Congressional candidate in the district…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70,50],"class_list":["post-309996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}