Former Bernie Sanders senior adviser Chuck Rocha’s Nuestro PAC and America’s Progressive Promise are launching the ad. | Courtesy of Chuck Rocha
A pair of super PACs launched by top aides to Bernie Sanders’ 2020 campaign is rolling out its first presidential campaign ad.
The spot, shared with POLITICO, targets Latino voters and attacks President Donald Trump over his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. It is part of a seven-figure buy that will appear on TV and digitally in Arizona, Michigan and North Carolina, in Spanish as well as English.
“Since the day he announced for president, Donald Trump has been at war with the Latino community, calling us rapists and criminals, attacking Dreamers, separating mothers from their children,” the narrator says in the ad. “Trump’s allowed the coronavirus to spread, devastating our community, where we’re dying at a higher rate than other Americans.”
The advertisement was the combined effort of Nuestro PAC, launched by ex-Sanders senior adviser Chuck Rocha, and America’s Progressive Promise, which was founded by top Sanders aide Jeff Weaver. The operatives are looking to persuade Sanders supporters, particularly Latino voters, young people and progressives, to back former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee.
“What makes it special is we’re following the exact lessons that we learned from the Bernie campaign,” Rocha said of winning over Latino voters. “We’re starting early. We’re going big, and we plan to continue. This is just the beginning, not the end.”
He added, “We were very intentional about putting Bernie in these ads.”
Surveys have found that Biden is polling behind Hillary Clinton’s 2016 performance with Latino voters, even as Trump has been in free fall among many other voting blocs.
The spot, the first of almost a dozen aimed at Latino voters, also includes positive content about Biden, saying that he will unite the country, boost the economy and support equal pay for women. It also prominently notes that Sanders endorsed him, and features an image of the two cheerfully bumping elbows in lieu of shaking hands at a debate amid the coronavirus crisis.
“The polls look good for Biden now and we hope they stay that way, but we know from 2016 that things can go bad fast,” Weaver said in a statement. “So we have our foot on the gas to ensure victory in November. This campaign to reach Latino voters is central to achieving that goal. Now is not the time for complacency.”
