The American Bridge 21st Century super political action committee (PAC) is planning to spend $50 million targeting President Donald Trump’s conservative political base in rural areas, focusing specifically on the issue of health care.
The American Bridge super PAC was founded by Media Matters for America chief David Brock, and is considered a major source of opposition research. It receives large donations from left-wing billionaire George Soros, including $2 million during the 2016 election cycle. It launched an “anti-Trump war room” after Trump won that election. Most recently, it called for a nationwide hiring boycott of outgoing White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Politico reports that polling by the group has found the president is vulnerable among his base on the health care issue:
American Bridge polled voters in small towns and rural areas, screening out self-identified liberal Democrats, to find out what they thought of the president. The group gave Trump a positive job approval rating overall, and it backed a generic Republican for Congress by 29 points over a generic Democrat. But the Republican-leaning pool of voters also gave Trump unfavorable ratings on several key issues, highlighting potential avenues of attack for American Bridge: 50 percent rated Trump negatively on “cutting taxes for people like me.”
Several health care questions were worse for the president. Just 25 percent of respondents gave Trump a positive rating for “reducing health care costs,” compared to 67 percent who rated him negatively, while they split against Trump 39-51 on “taking on the drug and pharmaceutical companies.”
Breitbart News has specifically highlighted health care as a strong issue for Democrats and a weak one for Trump. The president promised to repeal and replace Obamacare — and did repeal the individual mandate, as well as restraining the cost of premiums — but disagreement among congressional Republicans prevented him from fulfilling that promise.
Trump has pledged a better health care plan. In the interim, his administration has taken many steps to lower costs, expand choices, and increase access to life-saving drugs. However, the mainstream media have been reluctant to cover these steps. Recently, every major cable network cut away from the president’s announcement that his administration was changing an administrative rule to allow small businesses to reimburse their employees for health insurance.
American Bridge hopes to shift just enough of Trump’s rural support to push key states to Democrats, Politico reports.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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