Pro-Kasich Super PAC Spending $2.5M to Attack Trump
— -- A super PAC backing Republican candidate John Kasich is expected to spend $2.5 million on an advertising campaign over the next two months to “stand up to Donald Trump,” the group’s chief strategist told ABC News, making it the most significant sustained, paid advertising campaign to attack the GOP presidential frontrunner so far.
“There’s a growing consensus amongst our donors and frankly other donors that someone has to stand up to Donald Trump, someone has to put a paid effort behind this,” said the New Day for America strategist, Matt David.
The initial anti-Trump ad, which the group rolled out this morning, contrasted the billionaire businessman's experience and that of fellow frontrunner Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, with Kasich's and will run for about two weeks on New Hampshire television, David said. Future ads will follow that compare-and-contrast style and will focus solely on Trump or will primarily promote Kasich. Politico first reported on the plan.
Aside from the large sum devoted to advertising, what distinguishes this campaign from previous attacks on Trump is that it will avoid going after his bankruptcies, his privileged upbringing or his past support of liberal policies, according to David.
Instead, the group will try to "accelerate the buyer’s remorse that voters would have if they elected Donald Trump,” David said.
"We will paint an image for voters of what a Donald Trump presidency would look like, which is annoying and ineffective — ironically a lot like President Obama,” he said. "Blaming the legislature, refusing to negotiate, signing executive orders that are overturned by courts.”
After news emerged about New Day for America’s plan, Trump unloaded on Kasich, who has been struggling in the polls, in a dozen scathing tweets.
Kasich let loose on Trump in his own anti-Trump Twitter tirade, accusing Trump of flip-flopping on issues and supporting Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, and criticizing certain policy statements the real estate mogul has made. He even suggested Trump was a fan of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who many Republican candidates characterize as a foe of the United States.
It’s a long way from when Kasich refused to criticize Trump during the first GOP debate in August — he said then that Trump was “hitting a nerve in this country” — but not too far off from his attack on Trump in last week’s Republican debate in Milwaukee.
When asked about Trump’s anti-Kasich tweets, a spokesman for Kasich’s campaign, Rob Nichols, told ABC News: "This is hilarious to watch. No one loses it that bad unless, for some reason, they're feeling very insecure.”
New Day for America said it had already spent $11.5 million on television advertising on New Hampshire- and Boston-area media from the summer through the Granite State's primary in early February. This campaign will take $600,000 from that existing buy and add $1.9 million more, approximately 70 percent of which will go to television advertisements and the rest of which will be spread across radio, digital and mail advertising, David said.
Kasich’s chief strategist, John Weaver, sent an email to Kasich supporters late tonight soliciting donations “to help us push back” against what he called Trump’s "epic twitter rant."
