Democrats have identified a key subset of suburban women who could prove pivotal to their electoral fortunes in 2022. It’s distinct from the group of more affluent white women that helped Democrats prevail in 2018 and in the 2020 presidential contest, according to the Washington Post's Greg Sargent.

Instead, it’s a group of slightly less affluent, non-college educated women who generally support President Joe Biden but could be convinced to vote Republican or even simply stay home next year without a sustained education and messaging effort from Democrats.

The left-leaning group American Bridge recently conducted research in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia—all swing states with critical Senate races—and found that far too many women in this group favor Biden but aren’t committed to voting for Democrats next year and remain under-informed about one of Biden’s signature achievements so far, his $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package.

One of Biden’s chief pollsters, John Anzalone, identified the group as a “key target audience,” adding, “It’s going to be really important to communicate that these plans reward hard work, create opportunity for them in this economic recovery, and that this is about them.”

Now, an effort among different Democratic groups is underway to make certain this demographic understands how the Democrats’ pandemic relief plan has affected them personally, improved their lives, and benefitted the community around them. The messaging effort is focused on ensuring these voters understand that the stimulus checks, child tax credits, accelerated vaccine distribution, and critical aid to local businesses can all be traced back the relief package that not a single Republican voted for. And in fact, congressional Republicans across the country have been busily trying to take credit for that relief funding even after they voted to kill it. 

So the race is on to reach these voters early in the cycle and set their impressions of the work Biden and congressional Democrats have done.

To that end, American Bridge has recently launched two separate ads in Virginia and Arizona featuring women who are small-business owners extolling the virtues of the pandemic relief. The business owner in Virginia who’s also a veteran says she’s seen “firsthand” the relief package’s “massive impact” on the economy. Though she admits she hasn’t always voted for Democrats, she explains that she voted for Biden because “I knew he could get us out of this mess.”

“What he has done has really brought us back to life,” she says, adding, “With the help of Democrats in Congress, Joe Biden got it done.”

The female restaurateur in Phoenix, Arizona, stresses how devastating the pandemic has been to local restaurants and the “hope” the rescue package brought her. “Biden was really thinking about small business,” she says. “It’s like someone is thinking about me.”

A Biden-aligned group called Building Back Together has also launched a swing-state ad designed to grow support for the president’s American Jobs Plan. In it, Biden repeatedly stresses his plan will create blue-collar “jobs” in multiple infrastructure sectors and concludes, “Let’s get to work.”

Part of Democrats’ early efforts also stems from fears that some of these swing voters could buy into GOP messaging about the runaway spending and fiscal responsibility. Republicans will need at least some of these voters to defect from Democrats in order to retake a portion of the suburban battleground districts they lost in the last two election cycles.

“The very first place Republicans are likely to go will be the suburbs, especially with non-college-educated White women,” Dan Sena, who led House Democrats’ campaign arm told the Post.

Democrats are working to get there first. In their corner, they’ve got a good message to sell—so good that Republicans have even sought to steal credit for it.