On Tuesday an anti-Biden Super PAC announced a $1 million spend on behalf of N.C. Republican Senate candidate Ted Budd. The Committee to Defeat the President at www.stopjoe.com announced it will fund ads on social media platforms and calls for get-out-the-vote campaigns to bolster Budd and defeat Democrat Cheri Beasley.
According to a press release, the independent expenditure group is allocating $900,000 to strategic digital production, targeted placement, and social media advertising, in addition to approximately $250,000 in get-out-the-vote phone calls and text messages. The group is targeting registered Republican voters who have strongly supported Donald Trump in the past, saying their goal is to create a “red wave” among strong Trump supporters.
Originally established in 2013 as the Stop Hillary PAC, the group changed its name to The Committee to Defend the President under President Donald Trump, and then The Committee to Defeat the President under President Joe Biden.
The group helped to elect Republican U.S. Rep. Dan Bishop in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District run-off election against Democrat Dan McCready in 2019. This year, the PAC is also putting independent expenditure money in key swing states of Arizona, Florida, Ohio, and Virginia.
“The people of North Carolina need to recognize that the status quo simply isn’t good enough for America — neither in their state nor the country more broadly,” said committee chairman Ted Harvey. “Americans shouldn’t have to deal with rising prices, higher crime rates, and left-wing radicalism, but that is unfortunately a reality in Biden and Beasley’s America. Ted Budd is the man to help get America back on track, and we are proud to support his candidacy for U.S. Senate.”
The announcement comes the same day that Beasley’s campaign released a new ad with an endorsement from former President Barack Obama. Obama narrowly won North Carolina in 2008. He lost the state’s electoral votes during his otherwise successful 2012 re-election campaign.
In the 2020 presidential election, the anti-Biden committee now supporting Budd spent $200,000 across North Carolina on ads titled “Joe, Where’s Your Endorsement?” to highlight Biden’s late April 2020 endorsement from the former president.
Beasley’s Obama endorsement also comes late, this time in the final weeks of the campaign.
The ad featuring Obama will appear across social media platforms and on radio in what the campaign told the Associated Press was an effort to mobilize black voters in North Carolina. According to AP, Beasley will be focusing her homestretch of the campaign meeting with black churches and members of historically black fraternities and sororities.
Trump won North Carolina in 2016 and 2020. Budd spent Tuesday in Johnston County, rallying voters with U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, with plans to continue a 100-county tour across the state in the coming weeks.