As Kerry Eleveld noted earlier this week, Democrats are already promising to walk from any government funding deal that includes money for Donald Trump’s border wall (that Mexico was supposed to pay for, right?) and his ruthless, mass deportation force. Now they’re getting a major assist from the organizing effort that helped get Barack Obama in the White House:
The progressive group that grew out of former President Barack Obama's campaigns is making its first big move since Obama left office, targeting potential swing votes in Congress with digital ads ahead of a government funding fight over President Donald Trump's proposed border wall.
Organizing for Action's digital ad campaign is focusing on heavily Latino districts and states represented by Senate and House Republicans. The aim is to pressure members not to go along with the White House's demand for funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, which the administration has said will cost $21 billion. (Senate Democrats estimate the actual cost is closer to $70 billion.)
“The group's ads, which will start appearing on Facebook on Monday, tell users to call their representatives and ask them ‘not to fund the administration's wall and deportation force,’” notes Politico. “The ads target Nevada Sen. Dean Heller and Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, the two Senate Republicans considered most vulnerable to Democratic challengers in 2018.” Recent polling already has Democrats showing much more enthusiasm than Republicans when it comes to the 2018 election, thanks to unpopular Donald Trump and his just-as-unpopular, anti-American policies. OFA plans to target several other districts Hillary Clinton carried in 2016:
They'll also run in a slew of districts represented by House Republicans: Arizona Rep. Martha McSally; California Reps. Jeff Denham, David Valadao, Devin Nunes, Steve Knight, Ed Royce and Darrell Issa; Colorado Reps. Scott Tipton and Mike Coffman; Florida Reps. Brian Mast, Mario Diaz-Balart, Carlos Curbelo and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen; Pennsylvania Rep. Charlie Dent; and Texas Reps. John Culberson, Will Hurd and Pete Sessions.
"This administration wants to waste billions of taxpayer dollars on a massive border wall and a cruel deportation force, but only Congress can actually appropriate that spending," an OFA spokesperson said. "We want key members to know that if they vote to fund this discriminatory immigration agenda with their constituents' money, they'll be held accountable."