A new Republican super PAC is invoking the name of the deceased Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in an audacious attempt to defuse the volatile issue of abortion as a liability for Donald J. Trump.
The group, which is called RBG PAC and came into existence only days ago, began to spend $20 million on Friday in support of Mr. Trump, according to federal records. The group posted two abortion-themed ads focused on Mr. Trump’s declaration that he would oppose a federal abortion ban.
The group’s paperwork was signed by May Mailman, who worked in the Trump White House and who is now the director of the Independent Women’s Law Center. She did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
Ms. Mailman posted the ads online and said they featured a “suburban mom” who had never voted for Trump before but was backing him now because he has said he opposes a national abortion ban.
The ad she posted features a woman in a pink sweater sitting in a chair in a living room saying her life was better under Mr. Trump. She says that “freedom to choose is also important to me” and that she is voting for Mr. Trump, citing his support for exceptions to abortion restrictions in cases of rape, incest and risk to the life of the mother.
“His position is my position,” the woman says.
Mr. Trump has taken credit for overturning Roe v. Wade, which returned the issue of abortion to states, many of which have banned the procedure.
He has since worked to improve his standing with voters on the abortion issue, which polls show remains a significant advantage for Vice President Kamala Harris.
The RBG PAC’s website features two large pictures of Mr. Trump and Ms. Ginsburg and the words: “Great Minds Think Alike.”
The group’s use of Ms. Ginsburg’s name and likeness is particularly brash given that Mr. Trump, as president, appointed the Supreme Court justice who succeeded her. That appointee, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, voted with the majority to overturn Roe v. Wade.
It is common at the end of a presidential campaign for so-called “pop-up” groups to begin spending large amounts of money after the last financial disclosure deadline. Any groups that were active by Oct. 16, the last day of the last filing period before Election Day, would have been required to disclose donors or vendors working with the group.
RGB PAC filed its paperwork on Oct. 16.
“While it is permissible to game the system in this way under the FEC reporting rules that were written in the 1970s, in my experience only a campaign that believes that it is losing resorts to this tactic,” said Brett Kappel, a Democratic campaign-finance lawyer at the firm Harmon Curran.
The amount of money that the super PAC is spending suggests that it took in considerable resources in just the last week. It reported $17.3 million in digital media spending, $1.6 million on text measures and $1 million for printing and postage.
There are a number of megadonors who have been pouring money into the 2024 race, none more so at this stage than Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and the founder of Tesla, who has spend $119 million as of mid-October.
During an appearance on CNN this month, Ms. Mailman defended some of Mr. Musk’s tactics, including the offer to pay swing-state voters as much as $1 million to sign a petition. The Department of Justice has signaled that it could find Mr. Musk’s offer illegal, sending his super PAC a “warning letter” this week.
“There is something to super PACs using their money smarter and not just flooding the airwaves,” Ms. Mailman said on CNN.
She continued, “Getting people’s eyeballs, getting people to pay attention to this election is, I think, not just going to be the standard advertisements that we see. I think creativity is warranted in elections.”
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