WASHINGTON -- Black and Latino groups said Monday that they would begin an ad campaign aimed at urging swing state lawmakers in Congress to back a healthcare overhaul.

Experts warned that mobilizing those communities will be difficult, but Deepak Bhargava, the executive director of the Center for Community Change, which specializes in grass-roots campaigns, countered, ``If Congress fails to deliver a robust public option that most Americans want, it's communities of color that have the most to lose.''

His group, the NAACP, National Council of La Raza and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights designed the ads to highlight minority support for revamping healthcare, voices that they say were drowned out by opponents at town hall meetings and the media attention given them.

The organizers want to remind Democratic lawmakers who are facing tough midterm elections next year that the outcome of the healthcare debate will be a litmus test for how African-Americans and Hispanics vote. The groups have joined forces for an ad buy of $250,000 to $500,000 that will appear on minority-oriented cable networks such as Black Entertainment Television and Univisión in Florida, North Carolina, Louisiana and Arkansas and in African-American and Hispanic newspapers in those states.

The first ads will appear Thursday and will target moderate Sens. Kay Hagan, D-N.C.; Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark.; Mary Landrieu, D-La., and George LeMieux, R-Fla. Lincoln faces reelection next year and LeMieux is an interim appointment; the 2010 election will fill his seat, which Republican Sen. Mel Martinez vacated earlier this year

Independent analysts were skeptical of the campaign's potential. Other issues, particularly the economy, are foremost on voters' minds now, said Lance deHaven-Smith, a professor of public administration and policy at Florida State University . Added Rupert Nacoste, a professor of psychology at North Carolina State University and an expert on race relations, ``I sense not apathy, but uncertainty about what to get behind. So many things are moving all at once.''