Pro-Trump group puts $10M behind new ads in Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin

The largest outside group supporting President Trump’s reelection is putting $10 million behind three new ads set to run in Florida, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania attacking Democratic nominee Joe Biden for pledging to raise taxes and rejoin the Iran nuclear deal if he’s elected.

The America First Action PAC is reserving $5.5 million in Pennsylvania, with the ads going up in the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia markets, as well as a $350,000 direct-mail piece targeting Catholics and anti-abortion voters.

The Wisconsin reservation includes $3 million for Milwaukee, Green Bay and La Crosse. And in Florida, America First will put $1 million behind the ads in the West Palm Beach market, where it has already spent millions to date.

The first ad, called “After Work,” will run in Philadelphia and features working-class people drinking at a sports bar and talking about how Biden will raise their taxes.

“As a small business owner, that will crush us,” one man says.

“This guy has lost it,” says another man after the TV in the bar plays video of Biden saying, “If you elect me your taxes are going to be raised, not cut.”

The second ad running in all three states is called “Pandemic Tax” and attacks Biden for “supporting bad trade deals” and “opposing tax cuts for American families.”

“Now in the middle of a pandemic, Joe Biden supports higher taxes on all of us,” the narrator states. “On every income group. On middle-class retirement plans. A $4 trillion tax increase that will hurt America’s recovery. The Biden plan — bad trade deals, higher taxes.”

A third ad, running in Philadelphia, hits Biden for vowing to reenter the Iran nuclear deal. The ad features a man identified as “Robert,” a retired staff sergeant and Purple Heart recipient, talking about how he was injured by an Iranian bomb.

“The blast tore apart the Humvee and it was like a molten hot sledgehammer that hit me in the face,” the sergeant says. “It killed my friend. That bomb was made by Iranians. Now Joe Biden wants to cut another deal with them, paving the way for Iran to get a nuclear weapon and giving into the monsters that did this to me and my friends. Iran is pure evil and Joe Biden is dangerously weak.”

America First has invested $116 million so far this cycle and still has $50 million in ad spending committed between now and Election Day.

The Trump campaign has been massively outspent on the airwaves by Biden’s team in recent months as the Democratic nominee has posted blockbuster fundraising numbers.

The new ads come as Biden has stretched his lead in the key battleground states that will determine the outcome of the 2020 election.

America First had previously announced $8.7 million in ad spending in Miami and $12.7 million in the Orlando and West Palm Beach markets. Biden leads Trump by 4.5 points in the RealClearPolitics average of polls in Florida, a state Trump won narrowly in 2016.

The group had previously announced spending of $18.4 million in Pennsylvania, where polls show Biden expanding his lead to 7.1 points. Trump carried the state by less than 1 point in 2016.

And America First had previously spent $5.5 million in ad spending in Wisconsin, where Biden leads by 5.5 points in the polls.