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Bernie Sanders uses Drake and the Arctic Monkeys to target young voters in US election

The Democratic hopeful is going all-out in California

Elsa Vulliamy
Monday 13 June 2016 11:09 BST
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Bernie Sanders has more supporters under the age of 30 than Clinton and Trump combined
Bernie Sanders has more supporters under the age of 30 than Clinton and Trump combined

Bernie Sanders is using Drake and the Arctic Monkeys in an attempt to attract young voters in next week's California primary.

Hillary Clinton is poised to win the race to become the Democrat presidential candidate.

But Mr Sanders has urged media outlets not to call the race just yet, vowing “the Democratic National Convention will be a contested convention” regardless of the outcome of the primaries.

Sanders has far more supporters under the age of 30 than Ms Clinton and Donald Trump combined, having earned an estimated 1.5 million votes from young people in the 2016 presidential primaries and caucuses, more than twice as many as Ms Clinton.

In an attempt to win over the younger generation of Democrats, the Sanders campaign is using a special kind of paid advertisement on Twitter – the first time the tool has been used in a US election, Buzzfeed News reports.

Using a tool which Twitter calls a “conversational ad”, some specifically targeted users will be given the option to click a button which will produce a fully-formed tweet, written by the Sanders campaign. They can then send this tweet out to their followers, reminding them to vote Sanders.

What’s smart about conversational ads is the way that they are targeted to reach certain people. The majority of users will not see the advert – they will not be given the option to press the button and send out the automatic tweet.

The only people that will see the advert are people living in California who are similar to followers of modern music and fashion accounts, including Drake, The Arctic Monkeys, Marie Claire Creative Director and Project Runway judge Nina Garcia and Broadway actress Tavi Gevinson. This is an attempt to specifically target young, Californian voters.

The advert will also filter out users who are on an excluded list because they are likely to be registered Republican, not Democrat, and therefore cannot vote for Sanders – these people will not see the advert, even if they fall into the criteria.

Recent poll data from the LA Times shows Mr Sanders to be leading in California by just one point – out of 1,500 registered voters, 44 per cent backed Mr Sanders, with 43 per cent supporting Ms Clinton.

California will vote on 7 June.

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