The Philadelphia Suburbs.
This is the most affluent and highly educated region in Pennsylvania.
The people who live here are a traditional stronghold for the Democratic Party.
They are well-educated, care about the environnt, support won’s rights, and detest populism.
Logically, an elite politician like Aston Monroe—genteel and with a perfect resu—should be their ideal choice.
In contrast, John Murphy’s image—his coarse style and constant fraternizing with grease-stained workers—would only make them uncomfortable.
But today, that discomfort was being replaced by another, much stronger emotion.
Sarah Jenkins sat in the Pittsburgh campaign headquarters, her fingers flying across the keyboard.
She was directing an invisible air strike.
Targeted ads aid at female voters in the Philadelphia suburbs were being deployed en masse across all major social dia platforms.
These ads looked crude, even a little unsettling.
The video began with a black-and-white clip.
Senator Russell Warren stood at a podium in Congress, his face flushed red, waving his arms as he delivered a radical speech about banning abortion.
"Life is sacred! Any attempt to take the life of a fetus is murder! We must send these executioners to prison!"
Warren’s voice was shrill and grating, his eyes fierce enough to devour soone whole.
The scene then cut to Aston Monroe, now in color.
He was dressed in a fine suit, standing in a brightly lit studio for an interview.
"Vice Governor Monroe, what are your thoughts on Senator Warren’s radical position?"
Monroe smiled and replied in an extrely restrained tone:
"I believe we should respect differing viewpoints. This is a complex issue, and we need more dialogue, more understanding..."
The image froze on Monroe’s gentle, smiling face.
Then, the screen went black.
A female voiceover, trembling slightly, began to speak.
"Senator Warren wants to strip away our right to choose. He wants to control our bodies. He wants to turn back the clock fifty years."
"Vice Governor Monroe is a good man, a gentleman, but he’s too polite, too weak."
"Faced with a ferocious beast like Warren, a gentleman’s politeness will only be seen as weakness."
"He’ll be torn to shreds by Warren."
"If you want to protect your rights, if you don’t want your daughter to live in fear."
"You need a mad dog to go after another mad dog."
The video ended with a close-up of John Murphy from his speech in the Pittsburgh river valley.
His sleeves were rolled up, his face was covered in sweat, and he was pointing at the cara, roaring.
He looked a bit coarse, a bit savage.
But that sense of power, that ferocity of soone ready to charge forward and rip out his opponent’s throat at any mont, struck a chord right through the screen.
The caption slowly faded in:
"John Murphy. You don’t have to like him. But he can win."
In an exquisite single-family ho in the western Philadelphia suburbs.
Elizabeth, a forty-year-old lawyer and mother of two, was sitting on her sofa, scrolling through her phone.
She had just finished watching the ad.
Putting down her phone, she looked at her young daughter playing on the carpet, her brow furrowed tightly.
She didn’t like Murphy.
She found the man from Pittsburgh too vulgar, too populist, completely lacking a politician’s decorum.
But she was more afraid of Warren.
If Warren was reelected, if the Republican Party controlled the Senate, her daughter could one day live in a world without the right to an abortion.
She looked at Monroe’s gentle, smiling face, and a sudden, naless anger welled up inside her.
"Too soft," she muttered. "In tis like these, we need a fist, not a smile."
She opened the voter registration system on her phone. In the primary preference section, she moved her finger away from Monroe’s na, hesitated for a mont, then tapped on John Murphy’s.
It wasn’t out of affection.
It was out of fear.
「Pittsburgh, Campaign Headquarters.」
Sarah stared at the large data screen.
"The data’s shifting," Sarah said, her voice tinged with excitent.
"Murphy’s support among female voters in the Philadelphia suburbs has risen four percentage points in the last twenty-four hours."
"It’s incredible."
Beside her, Ethan pushed up his glasses, watching the flickering numbers.
"That’s defensive voting," Karen explained.
"In tis of peace, voters cast their ballots for the person they like, the one who looks most decent, most like a leader."
"But in tis of war, or when they feel under imnse threat, voters cast their ballots for the one who can protect them."
"Even if that person is a rogue, an asshole."
"As long as he can beat the enemy, as long as he can stop the barbarians at the gate."
"They’ll hold their noses and vote for him."
Leo sat in the corner, listening to Karen’s analysis and watching the angry face of Murphy on the screen.
The once-gentle, even sowhat timid Congressman had now been reforged by them into a sharp blade.
A blade ant to carve up the political landscape of Pennsylvania.
"Keep them running."
Leo gave the order.
"Increase the ad spend in the Philadelphia suburbs."
"We need every mother, every professional woman, to feel Warren’s breath on the back of their necks before they go to sleep."
"We need them to understand that only Murphy can put this beast back in its cage."
Sarah nodded. Her fingers tapped on the keyboard, pouring the next round of the ad budget into the bottomless pit of social dia.
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