WASHINGTON (AP) —The largest outside Democratic group announced Tuesday that it will spend as much as $450,000 per week on ads aimed at weakening President Donald Trump in battleground states.
Priorities USA Chairman Guy Cecil said the group is primarily targeting voters in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Hampshire, Nevada and Florida. The online ads will focus on Trump's handling of the economy.
Cecil said the economy may be doing well overall under Trump, but polling shows many Americans feel the prosperity hasn't trickled down.
He said wages haven't kept pace, health care and college remain unaffordable and the tax cut championed by Trump and the GOP primarily rewarded the wealthy.
"Most Americans describe the economy as being good. Most Americans also describe their own situation as being tenuous," Cecil said. "Our job is to make sure we are constantly putting these types of things in context."
The challenge will be breaking through the noise coming from the White House and Washington to get voters in crucial battlegrounds to focus on economic issues, he said.
It's unclear how much Priorities will spend overall. During the 2016 election, the group raised about $200 million.
Surveys conducted by the group suggest Trump is vulnerable in many of the same Rust Belt states that sealed his victory in 2016, such as Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, as well as Florida.
Here is a statement from the Republican Party of Wisconsin:
"President Trump has taken our nation to unprecedented heights and ushered in a new wave of success for all Americans. Our economy is roaring, six million jobs have been created, the unemployment rate is the lowest since we landed on the moon, and we have had 11 straight months of wage growth of 3 percent or higher. Moreover, thanks to President Trump’s America First agenda, blue-collar wages grew by 3.4 percent over the past year, adding $1,500 to the average middle class paycheck. These are the issues Wisconsinites care about, and the reason that Wisconsin voters will continue to embrace President Trump’s policies over the extreme agenda of the Democrats.”
