One of the top progressive Super PACs has reportedly not seen one single backlash from its coronavirus ads against President Donald Trump that mostly use his own words, showing that Trump’s daily press briefings may actually be doing the president more harm than good in critical swing states.
Nick Ahamed, the director of analytics for Priorities USA, told the Philadelphia Inquirer on Wednesday that the group has not “seen a single coronavirus ad backlash.”
The Inquirer noted that “when Priorities USA tests ads to gauge public reaction, sometimes the spots provoke a backlash that increases Trump’s support,” but that is apparently not happening at all with the group’s coronavirus ads. Priorities USA has reportedly spent at least $8 million airing coronavirus ads against Trump in critical swing states like Pennsylvania and Arizona.
Former Vice President Joe Biden praised Priorities USA on Wednesday as an “organization of proven effectiveness,” adding that the work they are doing to defeat Trump is “absolutely critical.”
“We haven’t seen a single coronavirus ad backlash,” Ahamed told the Inquirer. “It’s taking things that people already thought about Trump and making it crystal clear about how that affects their lives.”
The group, as noted in previous reports, is trying to win over “persuadable voters who sided with President Barack Obama in 2012 and then backed Trump, or those who chose Mitt Romney in 2012 and then Hillary Clinton,” by convincing them that Americans “are in this position now because the administration didn’t take it seriously.”
Progressive Super Pacs like Priorities USA reportedly have teams monitoring Trump’s “marathon” press ramblings and are betting that Trump’s “damning sound bites have begun to form the drumbeat of the November election.”
Guy Cecil, chairman of Priorities USA, recently told the Washington Post: “It’s important when you have a president who’s literally just lying, misinforming, mismanaging, that you use the president’s own words.”