Ex-White House aide launches ads aimed at getting mothers to vote for Trump
An alumna of President Donald Trump’s White House is launching a new political action committee on Monday with a seven-figure national TV and digital ad campaign to bolster Trump’s support with a key demographic: moms.
Moms for Safe Neighborhoods — a group founded by former White House aide Jessica Anderson that goes by MOMS for short — is investing $3 million in an ad campaign targeting suburban moms. The group will air a 30-second spot on networks and shows that appeal to suburban women, such as NBC’s “Today,” A&E, Bravo, Lifetime, E!, Oxygen and select shows on Fox News.
The footage paints a violent portrait of America under Democratic leadership in which a future President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats yield to activists’ calls to defund police, leaving suburban communities unprotected from anarchists. (Biden, who has said he is open to reimagining how some police funds are structured, has also said he doesn’t support defunding the police, and his criminal justice plan calls for a $300 million investment in a Community Oriented Policing Services program.)
The ad begins with a mother putting her child to bed and watching footage of riots on her cellphone before falling asleep herself and dreaming that Biden and a Democratic Congress have made massive cuts to police funding. Over footage of a protester smashing the window of a minivan with the mother and her child inside, a narrator warns: “They’ll defund police. They’ll disarm you. Don’t let this nightmare come true.”
The effort comes as Trump has seized on a law-and-order message to try to win back the suburban white women who abandoned Republicans in 2018. With national and several battleground state polls showing Trump trailing or tied with Biden, the president in recent weeks has sought to turn public safety into a top campaign issue as some protests against police brutality and racism have turned violent.
“Moms for Safe Neighborhoods came together because a group of concerned mothers saw Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and Democrats calling for diverting money from the police and failing to condemn the violence as it entered neighborhoods across the country,” said Anderson, a mother of two. “They banded together to get their message out to moms everywhere, but also because they understand how critical suburban women are to President Trump’s re-election.”
The group’s “grassroots leadership board” has some heavy hitters of female Republicans, including Penny Nance, CEO and president of Concerned Women for America; Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of Tea Party Patriots; GOP lawyer Cleta Mitchell; and former Rep. Nan Hayworth (R-N.Y.). Three notable politicians’ wives are also on the board: Debbie Meadows, who’s married to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows; Kristen Short, the wife of Marc Short, Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff; and Susan Allen, who’s married to former Virginia Gov. George Allen.
Anderson, executive director of Heritage Action for America, is doing this in her personal time. She previously worked in the Trump White House as associate director for intergovernmental affairs and strategic initiatives at the Office of Management and Budget.