Women-Led PACs to Spend $10 Million Blunting Attacks on Kamala Harris

Bloomberg: Women-Led PACs to Spend $10 Million Blunting Attacks on Kamala Harris
By: Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou

Four political groups led by women are joining forces for a digital campaign in key battleground states to support Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris and counter any attacks that they consider racist or sexist.

Democratic super PAC PACRONYM, BlackPAC, Planned Parenthood Votes and Women Vote, which is affiliated with EMILYs List, plan to spend $10 million on digital advertising and messaging in key battleground states including Michigan and Arizona, the groups told Bloomberg News.

“This partnership, between women controlling millions of dollars in communications resources, is timely and necessary,” said Adrianne Shropshire, executive director of BlackPAC. “Over the past month, it’s been clear as ever that the Trump campaign and the Republican Party have decided that misogyny and racism are their best hope to distract the country from their many failures.”

When Democratic nominee Joe Biden chose Harris as his running mate last month, she became the first Black woman and first Indian-American on a major party’s presidential ticket. Since joining the ticket, Harris has vowed to make fighting for women’s rights, especially for women of color, a priority in the Biden-Harris administration.

President Donald Trump has characterized Harris as “angry,” and a “madwoman,” saying her treatment of Biden during the primary debates was “nasty,” a term he also used to describe his Democratic opponent in 2016, Hillary Clinton, and other women.

Several of the groups have already begun reaching voters with pro-Harris content in key states for the upcoming election, including Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona and Georgia. Tara McGowan, CEO and founder of PACRONYM, said that in both the 2016 presidential election and the 2020 Democratic primaries, women faced attacks that discredited and disqualified their work and trustworthiness.

“This election is different, this ticket is different, the dynamics of the race are different and we have to do more than just hope that her joining Biden on the ticket is going to cover her,” McGowan said. “We need to be able to bolster her and help her be the asset that she is to voters who are going to be targeted with disinformation.”

The group said they are planning on targeting specific constituencies of voters against disinformation, while simultaneously touting Harris’s qualifications for the job.