Source: Politics<\/p>\n
In late September, a conservative group opposing Donald Trump quietly tested four TV ads that aimed to weaken the former president by focusing on a central issue of the campaign: His myriad legal troubles.<\/p>\n
One spot, which was surveyed before an online panel of Republican primary voters, declared that the indictments against Trump had \u201cworn\u201d him \u201cdown\u201d and undercut his ability to win the election. Another said the trials presented \u201ctoo much baggage\u201d and warned that Democrats would \u201csensationalize\u201d them to hurt the ex-president. The hardest-hitting commercial raised the specter that Trump would be convicted, leading President Joe Biden to \u201ccruise\u201d to reelection.<\/p>\n
All of the ads shared one thing in common beyond the topic on which they focused. They all failed or backfired.<\/p>\n
Three of the four actually boosted Trump\u2019s support among the participants. One \u2014 a softer-touch spot that features a voter saying Trump\u2019s trials \u201cworries\u201d him \u2014 had no measurable impact on Trump\u2019s numbers. The unaired ads, along with nearly 260 pages of accompanying data analysis, were obtained by POLITICO.<\/p>\n
Strategists with the conservative anti-Trump political action committee, Win It Back PAC decided to shelve the commercials. They remain unaired.<\/p>\n
Win It Back PAC representatives declined to comment.<\/p>\n
The behind-the-scenes deliberations around the ads underscores how Trump\u2019s legal problems have, if anything, helped \u2014 not hurt \u2014 his standing in the primary. With the first nominating contest less than three months away, a swath of Republican voters is making it clear they see Trump as the victim of the legal system, not a violator of it.<\/p>\n
That dynamic has created a predicament for Trump\u2019s rivals. Neither Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis nor former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, his leading opponents, have made Trump\u2019s indictments a focus of their attacks on the former president. Rather, both have taken steps to defend him: After Trump was indicted for interfering in Georgia\u2019s 2020 election vote count, DeSantis called it<\/a> an \u201cexample\u201d of the \u201ccriminalization of politics.\u201d<\/p>\n While Haley has called Trump\u2019s legal battles a \u201cdistraction,\u201d she has also said if elected president, she would be \u201cinclined\u201d to pardon the former president<\/a> and indicated she would vote<\/a> for him in the general election if he were convicted.<\/p>\n Win It Back PAC conducted its study Sept. 15-19, a month after Trump was indicted in the Georgia case and over his role in instigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. The online survey, which sampled 3,075 Republican voters nationwide, was designed to measure the impact each ad would have on Trump\u2019s level of support against the full field of primary candidates, and also in a prospective head-to-head matchup with DeSantis.<\/p>\n \u201cAll four ads tested failed to move support away from Trump on both the primary ballot and two-way ballot with DeSantis, relative to a strongly pro-Trump baseline,\u201d read one of the memos accompanying the ad.<\/p>\n The ad that raised the possibility of a Trump conviction, the memo says, \u201cperformed worst on the two-way ballot\u201d against DeSantis. That commercial, and the one that said Trump\u2019s indictments had \u201cworn him down,\u201d it adds, \u201cbackfired across almost all demographic groups.\u201d<\/p>\n The document, which was authored by the Republican data firm Echelon Insights, does not offer any conclusions on why the commercials backfired. But in a section entitled \u201copen-ended feedback\u201d it quotes several participants pointedly defending the former president.<\/p>\n \u201cI strongly disagree with this ad. I don\u2019t think people are giving Trump a fair chance because of who he is,\u201d said one.<\/p>\n \u201cThe thing that bothers me the most is the filthy lying individuals who are extremely corrupt that are trying to crucify Trump, which is obviously 100 percent unfair,\u201d said another.<\/p>\n The memo quotes a third respondent saying: \u201cStop bashing Trump and stand behind him.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump has promoted the idea that he is the victim of a legal system that is out to destroy him. His campaign has, among other things, sold blown-up posters of the mugshot taken after he was indicted for allegedly interfering in Georgia\u2019s 2020 election vote count. The signed posters are captioned, \u201cNever Surrender!\u201d<\/p>\n Win It Back has spent over $6 million since it launched in July<\/a>, airing more than a handful of anti-Trump ads in early nominating states plastering Trump. The emergence of the organization, which on its initial filing with the Federal Election Commission listed Club for Growth President David McIntosh as its designated agent, represented the latest twist in a yearslong turbulent relationship between Trump and the Club.<\/p>\n After the anti-tax Club spent millions of dollars in a failed effort to stop him from winning the Republican nomination in 2016, Trump and McIntosh became allies during his presidency. But their relationship soured during the 2022 midterm election when it backed rival candidates in the Ohio Republican Senate primary. The Club would later signal it was opposed to his 2024 comeback bid.<\/p>\n The Win It Back PAC commercials that did run questioned Trump\u2019s ability to beat Biden in a general election. But the group has been off the air since August, as Trump rivals struggled to consolidate support. It is unclear if it will resume its attacks on the former president.<\/p>\n In late September, Club for Growth President David McIntosh wrote a separate memo to Win It Back\u2019s donors in which he conveyed that the commercials that aired had succeeded in damaging Trump, but that it made little difference because other candidates failed to unify the anti-Trump primary vote around them. The memo was first reported<\/a> by The New York Times.<\/p>\n From the outset, the group has tried to appeal to Trump\u2019s supporters by offering a positive message about what Trump initially brought to the presidency but also warn that he would not be the party\u2019s best candidate going forward.<\/p>\n Americans for Prosperity, a conservative outfit overseen by billionaire Charles Koch\u2019s political network, has also attempted to stop Trump. To date, the organization has spent more than $15 million on anti-Trump advertising, according to an official with the group. One digital ad from Americans for Prosperity invoked Trump\u2019s legal baggage, making the case that it would undermine his ability to defeat Biden. Like Win it Back, Americans for Prosperity has not endorsed a candidate in the primary.<\/p>\n But such groups have in the past struggled to gain traction. In 2016, the Club and another group, Our Principles PAC, spent heavily to stop Trump from winning the primary. He won anyway.<\/p>\n