Republican Group Running Anti-Trump Ads Finds Little Is Working. By Jonathan Swan in the New York Times.
A well-funded group of anti-Trump conservatives has sent its donors a remarkably candid memo that reveals how resilient former President Donald J. Trump has been against millions of dollars of negative ads the group deployed against him in two early-voting states. …
But in the memo — dated Thursday and obtained by The New York Times — the head of Win It Back PAC, David McIntosh, acknowledges to donors that after extensive testing of more than 40 anti-Trump television ads, “all attempts to undermine his conservative credentials on specific issues were ineffective.” …
“Even when you show video to Republican primary voters — with complete context — of President Trump saying something otherwise objectionable to primary voters, they find a way to rationalize and dismiss it,” Mr. McIntosh states in the “key learnings” section of the memo.
“Every traditional postproduction ad attacking President Trump either backfired or produced no impact on his ballot support and favorability,” Mr. McIntosh adds. “This includes ads that primarily feature video of him saying liberal or stupid comments from his own mouth.”
Examples of “failed” ads cited in the memo included attacks on Mr. Trump’s “handling of the pandemic, promotion of vaccines, praise of Dr. Fauci, insane government spending, failure to build the wall, recent attacks on pro-life legislation, refusal to fight woke issues, openness to gun control, and many others.” …
“It is essential to disarm the viewer at the opening of the ad by establishing that the person being interviewed on camera is a Republican who previously supported President Trump,” he adds, “otherwise, the viewer will automatically put their guard up, assuming the messenger is just another Trump-hater whose opinion should be summarily dismissed.”
That’s because Donald Trump is uniquely THE anti-establishment candidate.
Want to change the way the US is run? Want to stick it to the ruling class? Then vote for Trump.
Competence and track record no longer have anything to do with it.
Ann Coulter is getting it:
You’d think the one thing Republicans would have learned from the 2016 Trump campaign is that voters wanted something completely different from what the GOP had been offering.
For decades, Republicans had run on tax cuts, more military spending to fund the forever wars, and diversity-lite. But Trump proved that what voters wanted was a wall, mass deportations, and a white guy who wasn’t embarrassed about being white. The GOP was like a man who keeps giving his wife Super Bowl tickets for her birthday, when what she wants is a fur coat.