Voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin get their first look Monday at an onslaught of Democratic attack ads against Donald Trump that will be coming their way for the remainder of the election cycle.
The inaugural ad from the Democratic group American Bridge 21st Century features Anna Igler, a Wisconsin OB-GYN and mother of two, who decided to abort her third pregnancy due to a devastating fetal abnormality.
Igler says she “had to end a wanted pregnancy because my baby was very sick.”
“So my husband and I made a decision to have an abortion,” she says, choking up as she recalls the moment her doctor told her the baby would not survive. “That’s not a decision for any politician, including Donald Trump.”
“Women need access and should have access to all of their options. Donald Trump wants to criminalize women for making a health care decision, even if it saves a woman’s life—that is horrifying,” Igler said. “If Trump is reelected, it would be devastating for women’s health care.”
Polling on abortion consistently shows it is one of President Joe Biden’s strongest issues and that the more voters know about Trump’s positioning, the less they like it.
But abortion also feeds a larger narrative about the perilous state of U.S. democracy and Republican efforts to chip away at people’s freedoms. So while these abortion ads start narrow, they will likely be woven into a more complex storyline later in the cycle about the stakes of this election.
The initial $25 million television, radio, and digital ad buy is the first chunk of the $140 million the group plans to spend this year to help Biden win reelection. The ad marks the first major buy by an independent pro-Biden outfit, but it will not be the last. The Washington Post reports that the Democratic group Future Forward plans to flood the zone with $250 million in ads following the Democratic National Convention in August.
Democrats have a cash advantage in the presidential contest this cycle and have already spent more than four times as much on advertising since the State of the Union address. Biden and the Democratic National Committee have dropped a combined $33 million on ads, according to the tracking firm AdImpact, while the pro-Trump group MAGA Inc. has spent just $7.9 million. The Trump campaign itself has spent nothing.
But whether Democrats’ hefty war chest can be translated into more support for Biden’s reelection remains to be seen.
