President Biden’s allies are looking to eat into former President Donald Trump’s support among rural voters in a few key battleground states.
American Bridge 21st Century kicked off a $140 million ad campaign Monday in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin that seeks to remind — or convince — voters about the chaos of the Trump years and the negative impact that the presumptive GOP presidential nominee had on their lives.
The initial $25 million round of ads centered on the fallout from the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade since a 2022 ruling returned the issue to states’ control.
It features the testimony of women, including one who says she chose to have an abortion after learning from her doctor that her baby would not survive.
“So my husband and I made the decision to have an abortion,” she says. “That is not a decision for any politicians, including Donald Trump. Women need access and should have access to all of their options.”
The husband says, “Donald Trump wants to criminalize women for making a health care decision – even if it saves a woman’s life. That is horrifying.”
In another ad, a nurse living and working in central Pennsylvania, asks, “If we reelect Trump, what are women going to lose next?”
The spots are running in some of the states’ smaller television markets, including Erie, Johnstown and Altoona, Pennsylvania; Flint, Saginaw and Bay City, Michigan; and Wausau and Rhinelander, Wisconsin.
Mr. Trump in 2020 ran circles around Mr. Biden with rural voters, winning 70% of them in Pennsylvania, 60% in Wisconsin and 54% in Michigan.
The ad blitz coincided with the release of a New York Times/Sienna College survey that found Mr. Trump has a slight edge over Mr Biden in Michigan and Pennsylvania, while Mr. Biden has a slight advantage in Wisconsin.
About six-in-ten (63%) of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, a share that has grown 4 percentage points since 2021, according to a Pew Research Center survey of more than 8,700 adults released Monday.
American Bridge 21st Century plans to run future ads focusing on defending democracy and individual freedoms.
Bradley Beychok, the group’s co-founder, said its goal is to remind voters in the three swing states of the “chaos and disorder” that existed when Mr. Trump was calling the shots from the White House.
“Trump made good on his threat to ban abortion. He made good on his threat to overturn Roe V. Wade,” Mr. Beychok said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “We have to hold him accountable every day.”
The former president has taken credit for the Supreme Court’s ruling, noting that he appointed three conservative high court justices who ruled with the majority.
Mr. Beychok said Mr. Biden and Democrats have faired well in elections when the focus is on abortion, democracy and freedom because it offers such a stark contrast to Mr. Trump.
“If you wake up and you are Donald Trump today, it is not only bad news because you are in a courtroom [on trial in New York], but it is bad news because those three issues, you are the poster boy for the wrong side of those [issues,]” he said. “A second Trump term would be unhinged.”
— This story is based in part on wire service reports.