Screenshot of HRC’s “Don’t Get Comfortable” ad – Photo: Human Rights Campaign, via YouTube.
The Human Rights Campaign’s “Equality Votes” PAC has launched a final digital ad and direct mail campaign focusing on voter education and motivating pro-equality voters to the polls as the 2020 Election campaign enters its final three weeks.
The digital ad campaign, comprised of two new video ads, one focusing on educating voters about various options for voting and the importance of making a plan, and the other focusing on holding President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and U.S. Senate Republicans accountable for pushing through the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court instead of passing financial relief for Americans suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic.
HRC’s final investment is in addition to its initial $1.5 million digital ad reservation announced in September, bringing HRC’s total independent expenditure program spending to $2.7 million this cycle.
The first ad, titled “Urgency” highlights various voting options and urges viewers to make a plan to vote.
The ad, as well as accompanying versions supporting specific HRC-endorsed candidates, will run in 25 targeted congressional districts in Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin.
The video will appear on various online and social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Vevo, Hulu, Pandora, and other video or streaming platforms.
Equality Votes PAC has also partnered with Collective Super PAC to provide a $200,000 investment in streaming and terrestrial radio advertising to reach Black voters in Atlanta, Detroit and Milwaukee, and encourage them to vote in this year’s elections.
As part of its direct mail campaign, the LGBTQ rights organization will be sending out mailers on the availability and importance of early voting to 274,000 so-called “Equality Voters” — those for whom a candidate’s position on LGBTQ rights is a deciding factor — in North Carolina, and 75,000 Equality Voters in Maine on behalf of HRC-endorsed U.S. Senate candidates Cal Cunningham and Sara Gideon. The three mail pieces be mailed out over the next week, through Oct. 22.
The second ad,”Don’t Get Comfortable” highlight Senate Republicans’ decision to push through Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court, casting Trump’s nominee as a threat to LGBTQ equality, reproductive rights, and the Affordable Care Act.
“Don’t get comfortable,” the narrator intones in the ad. “Our hard-won rights in the courts? They want to chip away at them.”
The ad shows Barrett embracing the ideology of former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, an opponent of LGBTQ rights.
“Anti-equality senators want to rush through this lifetime appointment instead of prioritizing relief during the pandemic,” the ad says, showing pictures of Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Martha McSally (R-Ariz.), Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), David Perdue (R-Ga.), Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), and John Cornyn (R-Texas).
“They are desperate and the clock is ticking. They know they’re losing,” the ad concludes. “Let’s vote them out. Today.”
“Already, over 12 million Equality Voters have requested their ballots for this election and millions more will be turning out to vote by mail, early in-person, or on Election Day. They are voting in record numbers to reject Donald Trump and Mike Pence as well as their enablers in Congress,” HRC Deputy Campaign Director Jonathan Shields said in a statement.
“The Human Rights Campaign’s Equality Votes PAC is investing in its largest effort ever — across 12 states inclusive of 25 competitive congressional districts and 96 state legislative districts — to educate and empower Equality Voters,” Shields added. “Our votes will be counted in contests up and down the ballot and when the results are in — Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will make history as the most pro-equality ticket ever elected.”
A Republican candidate who campaigned against transgender rights has dropped out of the Wisconsin governor's race after a local newspaper revealed he had followed several sex- and relationship-focused blogs on Medium, including one authored by a nonbinary porn performer.
Bill Berrien, a former Navy SEAL and CEO of Pindel Global Precision, a manufacturer of precision-machined components, was one of three Republicans competing for the party’s nomination in the 2026 Wisconsin governor’s race.
The 56-year-old businessman faced an uphill battle in the primary, where political observers saw him as the most "moderate" candidate. That perception stemmed from his past support for former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign, his backing of ranked-choice voting, and his criticism of Donald Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has pledged to make New York City a sanctuary city for transgender people.
In a new campaign ad honoring Latina trans activist Sylvia Rivera -- a pioneering figure in the early LGBTQ rights movement -- Mamdani sits at a desk near the Christopher Street Pier in Greenwich Village, recounting Rivera’s life and the pier’s significance as a haven for LGBTQ people in the city.
As photos and video clips of Rivera and other activists flash across the screen, Mamdani recounts her legacy of activism -- from her role in early gay and trans rights demonstrations to founding Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, which provided food and shelter for homeless trans people, and her push for LGBTQ-inclusive non-discrimination laws.
Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic nominee for Virginia governor, has released a new ad attacking her Republican rival, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, for claiming during a recent debate that firing someone for being gay -- or for opposing same-sex marriage -- does not amount to "discrimination."
Titled "That's Not Discrimination," the ad focuses on Earle-Sears' long record of opposing LGBTQ rights throughout her two-decade political career.
It mixes clips from Earle-Sears' contentious debate with Spanberger at Norfolk State University with a news report about how Earle-Sears penned a handwritten note on a bill she was required to sign -- a procedural duty of her role as Virginia's lieutenant governor and presiding officer of the Senate -- expressing her moral opposition to same-sex marriage.
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