Although the state is not expected to be a battleground in the presidential election, Florida is attracting some interest and investment in political ads and billboards.
The anti-Trump Lincoln Project on Monday released an ad running on television and digital platforms comparing former President Donald Trump to Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro. And vocal Trump critic George Conway’s Anti-Psychopath PAC announced last week that it is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on billboards near the former president’s Florida properties calling him a fraud.
Rick Wilson of the Lincoln Project said the organization aired its ad after seeing a poll last week that showed Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of the Republican candidate in key Miami-Dade County. Wilson said he doesn’t think “Florida is in play” but still wanted to draw a comparison between Trump and the Venezuelan dictator.
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By all accounts, Maduro lost the July 28 election but still declared himself the winner. The Lincoln Project compared the Venezuelan dictator to Trump in its 30-second spot.
“Where did Maduro learn this trick? From Donald Trump,” the ad says. “Maduro learned from Trump that he can lose an election and then lie about it. If you love Maduro, you’ll love what Trump does next.”
Lincoln Project ad compares Maduro to Trump after 2020 election
The former US president persistently claimed that he was cheated in the 2020 election, despite losing the court cases and despite the fact that, as election observers had repeatedly pointed out, numerous recounts and manual vote counts had conclusively proven that President Joe Biden had won the election four years ago.
Trump and his subordinates also faced criminal charges for their actions after 2020. And more than 1,000 Americans have been charged for their role in the subsequent violence at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. A congressional committee said the violence was part of an attempted coup led by Trump.
Trump insisted he won the election and referred to allies and those accused of the Jan. 6 crimes as “patriots” and “hostages.” He said “radical left” Democrats, “communists,” “Marxists” and others were a threat to American democracy. He dismissed the Jan. 6 congressional committee and its findings as a partisan attack.
But Wilson said he had been following “all the coverage of Maduro’s self-declaration as the winner” and it was natural to draw the comparison to Trump. And, he added, to remind certain “voter segments” in Florida of the disturbing similarity.
“It was something that struck us in that moment that we should remind one of Florida’s many voting segments, this emerging Venezuelan population and more broadly the anti-authoritarian population of South Florida, that the same things that drove them from their homeland, that drove them to flee to this country, are things that Donald Trump will bring if he is denied this election,” Wilson said of the ad, which echoes in spirit an ad from a few years ago that said, “Castro is Spanish for Trump.”
He added: “If he loses, he will do his best to push through a Maduro.”
If the state wants to get involved, South Florida will give the signal
Wilson added that he did not believe the state’s 30 electoral votes were still up for grabs, but he and others had noted an MDW Communications poll that showed Harris leading Trump by 15 percentage points in Miami-Dade.
“Florida is not in play, but if it becomes a state that comes into play, it will be in part because South Florida will secede and become a less solid base for Trump,” Wilson said.
Antonio Fins is politics and business editor for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. Reach him at [email protected]. Support our journalism. Subscribe today.
This article originally appeared in the Palm Beach Post: Uncompetitive Florida draws political interest from anti-Trump PACs
