WASHINGTON — The gun safety group Giffords is launching a $15 million campaign to help de facto Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris defeat her Republican rival Donald Trump and to help House candidates in crucial districts that favor stricter gun laws.
The new spending blitz, first reported by NBC News, will include paid TV and digital ads, direct mail (in English and Spanish), new polling to help allies refine their messages and the deployment of staffers and surrogates, including a co-founder of the group, former Rep. Gabby Giffords, D-Ariz., to persuade and mobilize voters. The group is focusing those resources on swing states like Michigan and Arizona, as well as California and New York, where a series of competitive races could decide control of the House.
“Voters in the Battleground State consistently rank gun violence as one of their top concerns,” Emma Brown, executive director of Giffords, said in a phone interview. “The issue is a real vote-shifter and can really affect election outcomes. That’s why we plan to use our resources this year, particularly the $15 million, to support gun safety champions and communicate directly with voters who are uniquely mobilized by guns in key battleground races across the country.”
Brown declined to comment on the fact that Harris is investigating a co-founder of the group, Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., the husband of former Rep. Giffords, saying the group does not get involved in “the speculation about the vice president.”
Now that mass shootings have become a regular part of American life, Giffords’ internal research has found not only that gun legislation enjoys strong support, but that it also appeals to groups of voters who have the power to decide elections — particularly suburban women, Latinos and black voters. Democrats’ perceptions improved “when we added a gun message,” Brown said.
The contrast between the presidential candidates is stark. Harris has already leaned into the issue, saying in her launch video that her campaign is about “the freedom to be safe from gun violence.” In a speech Thursday to the American Federation of Teachers, she said of Republicans, “We want to ban assault weapons, and they want to ban books.” In 2019, Harris supported a mandatory buyback program for military-style weapons, which Republicans have attacked as “gun confiscation.”
Trump, by contrast, has secured the support of the National Rifle Association and has campaigned as a staunch advocate for gun rights, calling himself “the most pro-gun, pro-Second Amendment president you’ve ever had in the White House” and arguing that mass shootings are not “a gun problem.”
But in a sign that Republicans are beginning to see the cause they’ve long celebrated as a political loser, the party’s 2024 platform makes no mention of guns or the Second Amendment. The platform section of Trump’s website also ignores the issue.
Harris and Democrats have called for mandating universal background checks for gun sales, restoring the ban on semi-automatic weapons and restoring the ban on bump stock accessories. Trump and most Republicans rejected those proposals, though some GOP senators have supported modest new measures in 2022 to include juvenile records in background checks and caps on domestic abusers.
Trump has nominated justices and Supreme Court justices who are skeptical of gun restrictions, while Harris is likely to nominate justices who believe the Second Amendment does not prohibit significant restrictions on firearms.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
