Conservative Super PAC Declares War on Donald Trump
The battle against The Donald is ramping up on a new front.
— -- The battle against Donald Trump is ramping up on a new front: Super PACs.
The economic conservative Super PAC “Club for Growth Action” is jumping into the fray, unveiling an Iowa ad buy with two television spots worth more than $1 million. The ads start Thursday in Iowa, both on local television and on Fox News.
The move represents the first major effort by an outside group to bring down the real estate mogul, who is leading in polls nationally and in early states. Jeb's Super PAC, Right to Rise, will follow with anti-Trump television spots worth more than $20 million in early states.
The Club's first ad focuses on what they say is Trump's "very liberal" record, warning voters that Trump is "just another politician" and that "he's really just playing us for chumps" by running for the Republican nomination. Its second ad also attacks Trump as "the worst kind of politician," but this time the spotlight is on his support of eminent domain, asserting that he holds a typically liberal stance on the issue.
Trump shot back on Twitter shortly after the Club's unveiling of the ads, saying the Club was "little respected" and had asked him for $1,000,000 in the past - a request Trump refused.
At the unveiling, organization president David McIntosh called Trump a “terrible leader on economic growth." “It’s astonishing he’s even running as a Republican,” he continued, saying that Trump “will say anything to get elected.”
McIntosh said the organization “is committed to seeing this all the way through,” claiming they will keep airing the ads until Trump supporters realize "he is, in fact, like all of the Washington insiders he rails against." When asked whether Trump could win the nomination, McIntosh said “we’ve got to take Donald Trump seriously.”
McIntosh said there weren’t any other Super PACs that Club for Growth is working with right now, but he believes that it's "likely" will join the effort against Trump.