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| Hillary Clinton Supporters Push to Define Donald Trump Early | Hillary Clinton Supporters Push to Define Donald Trump Early |
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| To voters in New Hampshire, the images of Donald J. Trump seemingly mocking a reporter with a disability were well known by the time the Feb. 9 primary arrived. The “super PAC” backing Hillary Clinton is banking that the images will be unfamiliar and off-putting to a general election audience in several swing states, using them in an ad called “Grace.” | To voters in New Hampshire, the images of Donald J. Trump seemingly mocking a reporter with a disability were well known by the time the Feb. 9 primary arrived. The “super PAC” backing Hillary Clinton is banking that the images will be unfamiliar and off-putting to a general election audience in several swing states, using them in an ad called “Grace.” |
| THE MESSAGE The ad tells the story not through news reports, but through the eyes of a family with a disabled daughter. Pictures of Grace, a girl born with spina bifida, show her at birth and through childhood, smiling broadly in her wheelchair. As her parents, notably from Ohio, a major swing state, tell the story of her early life, the ad segues to video of Mr. Trump flailing his arms before cutting to a photo showing the reporter he was criticizing at the time, Serge Kovaleski of The New York Times, who has a condition that limits the functioning of his joints. | THE MESSAGE The ad tells the story not through news reports, but through the eyes of a family with a disabled daughter. Pictures of Grace, a girl born with spina bifida, show her at birth and through childhood, smiling broadly in her wheelchair. As her parents, notably from Ohio, a major swing state, tell the story of her early life, the ad segues to video of Mr. Trump flailing his arms before cutting to a photo showing the reporter he was criticizing at the time, Serge Kovaleski of The New York Times, who has a condition that limits the functioning of his joints. |
| “When I saw Donald Trump mock someone with a disability, it showed me his soul,” Grace’s father says in the ad. “It showed me his heart. And I didn’t like what I saw.” | “When I saw Donald Trump mock someone with a disability, it showed me his soul,” Grace’s father says in the ad. “It showed me his heart. And I didn’t like what I saw.” |
| THE IMPACT The ad feels a little over-focus-grouped, as variations of the phrase “mocked a person with a disability” come four times in about 30 seconds. But the ad was also deemed highly effective when it was tested before various audiences. Ace Metrix, an independent analytics company, found the ad to be especially effective among women, millennials and voters with incomes over $75,000. | THE IMPACT The ad feels a little over-focus-grouped, as variations of the phrase “mocked a person with a disability” come four times in about 30 seconds. But the ad was also deemed highly effective when it was tested before various audiences. Ace Metrix, an independent analytics company, found the ad to be especially effective among women, millennials and voters with incomes over $75,000. |
| THE TAKEAWAY Priorities USA, the super PAC that placed the ad, was obviously confident that it would resonate, putting $4.5 million behind it for its first week on air, a relatively large investment for this point in the race. It has since expanded the ad to North Carolina, putting it on air now in eight states. The group seems determined to define Mr. Trump early and often, much as the Obama campaign did to Mitt Romney in the summer of 2012. What remains to be seen is whether the group can have an actual impact on Mr. Trump; similar lines of attack fell flat during the Republican primary. | THE TAKEAWAY Priorities USA, the super PAC that placed the ad, was obviously confident that it would resonate, putting $4.5 million behind it for its first week on air, a relatively large investment for this point in the race. It has since expanded the ad to North Carolina, putting it on air now in eight states. The group seems determined to define Mr. Trump early and often, much as the Obama campaign did to Mitt Romney in the summer of 2012. What remains to be seen is whether the group can have an actual impact on Mr. Trump; similar lines of attack fell flat during the Republican primary. |
| While Mr. Trump eschewed super PACs and, to a lesser extent, television advertising during the Republican primary campaign, he is now getting the support of both. At least four super PACs have sprung up in support of the candidate, and one, Rebuilding America Now PAC, has already gone on air with an ad linking Mrs. Clinton’s email scandal to her husband’s impeachment scandal in the 1990s. The group, which recently hired Alex Castellanos, a Republican ad maker who was once in the “Stop Trump” movement, aims to counter Priorities USA throughout the election. So far, its efforts are much smaller, having spent just $1.1 million on a national cable buy for the coming week. | |
| Politics is often overloaded with warlike rhetoric — “launched an attack,” “aimed at,” “battleground states” — so it’s unsurprising when political ads reach for warlike imagery. The latest example: Eric Greitens, a former members of the Navy SEALs running for governor of Missouri, saying he will take “dead aim at politics as usual,” literally takes aim with an assault rifle and fires off live rounds into an empty field, somehow creating a billowing explosion. | |
| The advertising battle between Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, and Katie McGinty, his Democratic challenger, is getting cheesy. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce ran an ad for Mr. Toomey featuring a faux focus group’s reaction to the choice between two toppings on a cheesesteak: Cheez Whiz, the preferred sauce of Philadelphians, or Silly String. It then asked the group to choose between a sandwich with ham and one with a live hamster, before offering a choice between the “bipartisan” Mr. Toomey and the “polarizing” Ms. McGinty, a former state official. | The advertising battle between Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, and Katie McGinty, his Democratic challenger, is getting cheesy. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce ran an ad for Mr. Toomey featuring a faux focus group’s reaction to the choice between two toppings on a cheesesteak: Cheez Whiz, the preferred sauce of Philadelphians, or Silly String. It then asked the group to choose between a sandwich with ham and one with a live hamster, before offering a choice between the “bipartisan” Mr. Toomey and the “polarizing” Ms. McGinty, a former state official. |
| $2.4 million: Total ad spending on the Democratic presidential primary in California. | |
| $117 million: Total spending on the nationwide Democratic race. |