Morning Digest: Club for Growth, which spent millions to stop Trump, takes on 'anti-Trump' GOPer
newsdepo.com
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar. LeadMorning Digest: Club for Growth, which spent millions to stop Trump, takes on 'anti-Trump' GOPer
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar. Leading Off ● NY-27: The radical anti-tax Club for Growth is spending a total of $32,000 on ads on Fox News and local conservative talk radio on spots arguing that GOP state Sen. Chris Jacobs didn’t support Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016. Campaign Action The TV commercial utilizes a clip of a reporter asking Jacobs if he supported Trump’s candidacy and Jacobs responding, “I am 100% focused on my campaign. I’m running for state office.” The GOP nominee for this still unscheduled special election will be chosen by county party leaders rather than primary voters, so the Club’s media campaign is aimed at persuading this small but important group not to pick Jacobs. This isn’t the first time this year that the Club has implemented this type of strategy. In March, just before party delegates were to meet and select their special election nominee for Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District, the group spent $16,000 on targeted mailers and an opposition research packet targeting state Rep. Jeff Wheeland. Wheeland, citing negative attacks, ended up removing his name from consideration just before the party assembly began. However, while the Club is relying on New York GOP leaders’ love of Trump to knock out another opponent, neither they nor Jacobs actually showed any enthusiasm about him in 2016. During the primaries, the Club spent millions on ads declaring, “There’s nothing conservative about giving money to the Clintons. There’s nothing conservative about Donald Trump.” As recently as the fall of that year, the Club’s then-spokesperson, Doug Sachtleben, still used his private account to tweet that his party’s nominee was “petty,” “thin-skinned,” and “like a teenage boy.” However, the Club quickly embraced Trump after the election and never looked back. Read more