CLEVELAND, Ohio – Two groups of Republicans opposed to President Donald Trump are launching offensives against the President this week in a bid to change a state that Trump easily won in 2016 from former Democratic Vice President Joe Biden.
Both The Lincoln Project and Republican Voters Against Trump are coming up in the air on a plan they have dubbed “Operation Grant” to lure conservative voters away from Trump, as public polls indicate a tighter race. Trump won the state in 2016 by 8 percentage points, but sour opinions about the president’s handling of multiple crises has led both organizations to believe that the state, once presumed to be in the Republican Party column, is at stake. .
Both groups are launching the purchase of six-figure television commercials on the network and cable television, as well as digital, with plans to build from there with grassroots efforts led by volunteers.
“From our perspective, this is a real opportunity along with RVAT to remind Ohioans why they have been in a state of change for so long, that they should be a state of change,” said Reed Galen, co-founder of The Lincoln. Project, in an interview.
The Lincoln Project will broadcast its place on the web and cable television in Columbus and on cable in Akron. Republican voters against Trump will be in the Cincinnati area.
The ads are aimed at suburban voters who may have voted for Trump in 2016, either out of loyalty to the Republican Party or because they disliked Democrat Hillary Clinton.
“After some conversations analyzing public and private poll data, we believe it is valuable to push this campaign forward in Ohio and that Trump can be defeated in Ohio,” said Tim Miller, co-founder and political director of Republican voters against Trump, at an interview.
The two groups, while complementary, are taking somewhat different approaches in their advertising strategy.
The Lincoln Project is titled “Mourning in America,” a play in the famous 1984 television spot of Republican President Ronald Reagan’s campaign. The Lincoln Project ad has a much darker representation of Ohio and the country than the Reagan ad, which targets the more than 125,000 who have died from coronavirus and the resulting recession in Trump.
“There is mourning in the United States and, under the leadership of Donald Trump, Ohio is weaker, sicker and poorer,” says the narrator of the ad. “And now, Americans are asking, ‘If we have another four years like this, will there even be a United States?'”
The Republican Voters against Trump ad, titled “It’s OK to Change Your Mind, Ohio,” opens with images from the 2016 Republican National Convention held in Cleveland and features testimonials from former Trump voters who have changed their mind for a variety of reasons.
“What we found in the investigation is using testimonial videos of conservative voters who voted for Trump, who are more likely to vote for this message than some of the more aggressive attacks that shut them down,” Miller said.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOztmkKXhTE
Miller said his group is planning to air more venues in the future that feature exclusively Ohio voters who supported Trump in 2016, but have since been deprived of their rights by the president.
The Lincoln Project and Republican voters against Trump were formed out of the Republican diaspora after Trump’s nomination in 2016. Veteran politicians from the party’s most traditional wing lead the joint effort with an overlapping goal of defeating Trump in the election. November.
The founders of the Lincoln Project include John Weaver, former adviser to former Republican Ohio Governor John Kasich, and George Conway, husband of White House adviser Kellyanne Conway. Galen is an Ohio native with experience working under former President George W. Bush and former Arizona Senator John McCain. Co-founders of Republican voters against Trump include Miller, communications director for the 2016 presidential campaign for former Florida Republican Gov. Jeb Bush, and Bill Kristol, a conservative political analyst who founded the now-defunct publication The Weekly Standard.
Ohio’s announcements are part of a broader planned strategy that includes thousands of volunteers using different types of communication, including direct text message campaigns and video municipalities. Neither group will send door-to-door volunteers due to the pandemic.
Miller said Republican voters against Trump have 5,000 Ohioans who have registered with them, while Galen said 11,000 have registered with The Lincoln Project. Miller and Galen said they plan to release a list of prominent Ohio supporters for each of their organizations in the coming weeks.
Trump campaign spokesman Chris Walker said they were not concerned about the attacks on the president in Ohio.
“Disgruntled losers looking to make a quick buck don’t concern us,” Walker said.
While the plans for the two groups are still in their early stages, the fact that they have decided to focus on Ohio is another indicator that Buckeye’s state is much more competitive than it was a year ago.
Following Trump’s 450,000-vote victory in 2016 and Republican dominance in the 2018 midterm elections, national Democrats had largely abandoned the state. Priorities USA, one of the largest super Democratic PACs, has not included Ohio in its plans, and a PowerPoint from a recent press conference of them lists it as less competitive than Texas and Georgia, two long-standing Republican strongholds.
However, recent public polls point to a more competitive race, which routinely shows a small margin between Trump and Biden. The Trump campaign bought more than $ 18 million in network television ads for the fall, another sign that the state may be competitive.
“I think Ohio is an achievable state and we want to make sure that Trump has to fight for him and that he is not just recognized,” Miller said. “I think that’s what is driving this a lot. I think there is wrong conventional wisdom. “
