The pro-choice group NARAL has released its plan to elect pro-choice candidates to Congress in the 2018 midterm elections, and it involves millions in advertising.
This will be the group's “largest ever midterm political program,” and will amount to nearly four times the amount that the group spent on the 2016 presidential election.
The plan was first announced in an invite-only conference call, then in a news release on NARAL's website. TheBlaze RSVPed to the conference call, but NARAL never responded to our request to participate in the call and ask questions. According to the release:
NARAL is investing in diverse candidates up and down the ballot in 19 states, including spending $5 million on mail, phones, digital ads, door to door canvassing, TV ads, and rallies to hold anti-choice candidates accountable and lift up pro-choice champions.
The campaign will target key pro-life members of the House of Representatives who are facing close races in their home districts. The campaign, dubbed “Pro-Choice Majority Makers,” will specifically target general election races in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin.
NARAL called this “an unprecedented investment to hold anti-choice candidates accountable and lift up pro-choice champions." The campaign will target several conservative members of Congress who supported the Life at Conception Act.
“This is the moment NARAL was made for,” NARAL President Ilyse Hogue said, according to the Washington Post. “We’re seeing and feeling a deep anxiety that is ginning up enthusiasm to take back the House as a buttress against Trump’s draconian agenda. It’s our job to translate it into wins.”
NARAL told the Post that it was funding this campaign through a surge of donations it received after the election of President Donald Trump. NARAL said that many of those donations came from people who sarcastically said that they were giving on behalf of Vice President Mike Pence.
This campaign dwarfs NARAL spending during that presidential election, which only amounted to $1.3 million.
