Republican Group Running Anti-Trump Ads Finds Little Is Working

[Celerity]

With over 40 ads and $6 million spent, a group tied to the Club for Growth is no closer to an answer, a memo to donors says. Some ads even gave Donald Trump a boost.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/28/us/politics/anti-trump-ads-memo.html

https://archive.ph/E3J8Z



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. The political action committee, called Win It Back, has close ties to the influential fiscally conservative group Club for Growth. It has already spent more than $4 million trying to lower Mr. Trump’s support among Republican voters in Iowa and nearly $2 million more trying to damage him in South Carolina.

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.” The memo will provide little reassurance to the rest of the field of Mr. Trump’s Republican rivals that there is any elusive message out there that can work to deflate his support.

“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.”

For the polling underpinning its analysis, Win It Back used WPA Intelligence — a firm that also works for the super PAC supporting Mr. Trump’s chief rival in the race for the presidential nomination, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. 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.” (Dr. Anthony S. Fauci led the national response to the Covid pandemic.)

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[Ocelot II]

1. It's a cult. You can't persuade cult members with the most persuasive ads

or facts or arguments.

[temporary311]

2. Especially not

when they're getting constant daily indoctrination reinforcement from Fox, Newsmax, etc.

[DemocraticPatriot]

3. At this point, their only possible 'opening' would seem to be attempting to peal evangelicals away,

over their 'no exceptions' abortion stance--- and Trump's rejection of it.

Trump has certainly given them an opening on that one issue, about a mile wide---


(of course on this issue, drumph is talking out of both sides of his mouth, as usual...
He is "proud" that he nominated the SC justices who overturned Roe v. Wade,
but he is trying to campaign as a 'moderate' on abortion, with the 2024 General Election in his sites...)

[WarGamer]

4. He'll be gone by the end of 24... if he loses...

And won't be a factor any more.

2028 will be when the GOP pushes a new version of Trump.

[malthaussen]

5. This doesn't surprise me.

Surely by now only the most die-hard Trump supporters are left, and they are not going to change their minds.

-- Mal

[czarjak]

6. Stewing in their own juices. Silver-Lining. I guess.

[JohnnyRingo]

7. Mass hypnosis.

One has to be somewhat willing to be hypnotized. I'd say the MAGAs fit that bill perfectly.