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The Lincoln Project and Republican Voters against Trump are generating huge publicity and producing some of the slickest adverts I've ever seen. But is there any evidence that they are having any effect at persuading either Republican voters, or even independents/swing voters, in great numbers? Most polling evidence I've seen shows that Republicans are overwhelmingly supportive of Trump.

Are they actually having an impact, besides just generating lots of publicity and producing slick ads?

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    One thought would be that the people they are targeting no longer identify as Republican (re: your line about polling evidence), which would intensify Trump's hold on those that still do.
    – Azor Ahai -him-
    Commented Oct 16, 2020 at 15:04
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    @AzorAhai--hehim It might be better to look at split ticket voters, who are voting for Biden and their Republican Senator. That might give you an idea of Republicans who are turned off by Trump specifically. For example, Republican Senators in MI, ME, and GA are polling better than Trump in their states
    – divibisan
    Commented Oct 16, 2020 at 15:27
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    There is very little hard evidence that campaigning decisions within the normal range for major party candidates makes any difference at all. Parsing that out into specific campaign tactics or efforts within the larger collective array of campaigning effort is even harder.
    – ohwilleke ♦
    Commented Oct 16, 2020 at 17:43
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    There is also a covert social media campaign involving people pretending to be Trump supporters saying stupid, ridiculous things in defense of Trump and this has had a big effect.
    – Count Iblis
    Commented Oct 16, 2020 at 19:21
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    Also there is an accusation that almost all of the money spent by them went to the group’s board members and firms run by them: twitter.com/SawyerHackett/status/1316413492061261825 and opensecrets.org/news/2020/05/…
    – adiga
    Commented Oct 17, 2020 at 17:04

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Some Republicans did not vote for Trump on account of his behavior. If some likely Trump voters in swing states stayed home or switched sides then it had an effect.

That being said, numerous sources have reported that voters were decided well before the election, and that political ads may not have changed many minds at all. Especially considering what was spent.

https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/36/eabc4046

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