‘The fight starts now’: Dem super PAC to run Donald Trump-bashing ads during RNC

Image via Priorities USA Action.

Priorities USA Action, one of the Democratic Party’s largest super PACs, is running a digital ad campaign next week to counterprogram the Republican National Convention (RNC).

The five-figure ad buy will target Black, Latino and young voters in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where the RNC is being held July 15-18. And it’s using Donald Trump’s campaign slogan against him.

The 30-second spot, titled “Trump Again,” features the former President declaring that he will “Make America Great Again.” But instead of “great,” the PAC spliced in substitute words it says voters are more likely to associate with Trump’s first term, including “sick,” “heartless,” “weak,” “mean” and “deadly.”

The ad ends with a call to action: “The fight starts now.”

Founded in 2011 by former Barack Obama aides, Priorities USA last year announced plans to spend $75 million on an online effort to help President Joe Biden and other Democrats secure victories this year.

As of May 31, it had about $1.64 million in the bank, Federal Election Commission records show.

The new ad campaign, announced Friday, comes amid mounting questions about whether Biden should stay in the presidential race or step aside and allow another Democrat to take his place as the Democratic Party’s candidate.

Two-thirds of Americans, including a majority of Biden supporters, believe the President should drop out after he turned in a disastrous debate performance last month, which he blamed on fatigue.

He tried to put concerns about his mental faculties to rest at a press conference Thursday. For the most part, he answered reporters’ questions clearly and knowledgeably. But he errantly referred to Trump as his Vice President following a question about Vice President Kamala Harris. The flub came just hours after Biden introduced Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a NATO summit as “President (Vladimir) Putin,” the President of Russia, which has been at war with Ukraine for more than two years.

Trump has misidentified people several times as well, including in January when he repeatedly referred to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, as former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, a Republican who in March became the last viable challenger to Trump to drop out of the GOP Primary.

The new Priorities USA ad campaign also comes three days after the Democratic National Committee bought billboard ads in South Florida, where Trump lives, connecting the former President to a comprehensive plan called Project 2025 that aims to reshape the U.S. federal government and consolidate executive power with a Trump win in November.

The plan has attracted negative attention in recent weeks for some of its extreme objectives, including purging thousands of civil servants from federal agencies if their political leanings are deemed too liberal, slashing funding for renewable energy research and development, and reversing a 24-year-old approval of the abortion pill mifepristone.

Trump has denied knowing anything about Project 2025 and called parts of the plan “absolutely ridiculous and abysmal.” Project 2025 personnel, in turn, said the initiative “does not speak for any candidate or campaign.”

Democratic National Committee spokesperson Aida Ross pointed out recently that several past Trump administration officials — including Trump’s former Chief of Staff at the U.S. Office of Personnel and Management, Paul Dans; former Associate Directors of Presidential Personnel Spencer Chretien and Troup Hemenway; former White House aide Johnny McEntee; former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows; and former West Wing adviser Stephen Miller — are directly involved with the initiative.

Biden’s campaign also noted last week that Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s Press Secretary, has appeared in Project 2025 recruitment advertising.