Pro-Trump super PAC readies 2020 battleground states ad blitz

Washington Examiner | Katherine Doyle

A super PAC aligned with President Trump plans to attack his most likely Democratic challenger in key battleground states with a high-dollar digital, television, and direct-mail ad blitz.

America First Action is using polls to track five leading Democratic candidates on their favorable to unfavorable ratings in Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. These are the states they think will guarantee Trump reelection if he wins, the group told Axios. They plan to target voters through new data and have pulled hundreds of pages of research on each contender.

In December, the group spent $2 million on ads that hammered vulnerable House Democrats who voted to begin impeachment proceedings against the president. After Trump's State of the Union address, AFA bought ads in swing states touting his message on the right to bear arms.

The group is tracking front-runner Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

At 54%, Sanders's unfavorable numbers in Florida are high enough that if he becomes the nominee, the group thinks it could safely drop the state from its attack plans. It plans instead to redeploy its resources to states with broad union support and high numbers of blue-collar workers, such as Michigan.