A super PAC supporting Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is going on the offensive against Donald Trump, launching a new ad in Iowa amplifying Trump’s spat with the state’s popular Republican governor.
The 30-second ad from Never Back Down, the super political action committee that backs DeSantis, calls Governor Kim Reynolds “a conservative champion” and highlights Trump’s statement that she isn’t invited to any of his campaign events.
“Why is Donald Trump attacking her?” the ad says. “Trump should attack Democrats, not Republicans. What happened to Donald Trump?”
It’s the first television advertisement from the pro-DeSantis forces that confronts Trump directly. It comes after the Florida governor’s presidential campaign fired staff on Friday, huddled with donors over the weekend and agreed to a CNN interview with the candidate on Tuesday after earlier eschewing mainstream media organizations.
The ad, which the PAC said will cost seven figures, is timed to debut in the hours before Trump is scheduled to appear Tuesday at a Cedar Rapids town hall hosted by Sean Hannity of Fox News.
In the ad, the creators use artificial intelligence to replicate Trump’s voice reading his July 10 post on his Truth Social platform, according to a person familiar with the matter.
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“I opened up the Governor position for Kim Reynolds, & when she fell behind, I ENDORSED her, did big Rallies, & she won,” Trump wrote. “Now, she wants to remain ‘NEUTRAL.’ I don’t invite her to events!”
Reynolds has an 86% approval rating among Iowa Republicans, according to a Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll in March. She hasn’t made an endorsement for the 2024 Republican nomination. Next month, she’ll interview presidential candidates at the Iowa State Fair. The Iowa caucuses in January will be the first battleground in the contest for the Republican nomination.
“DeSantis and his allies should focus on his own flailing campaign rife with internal conflict and subversion among his closest supporters,” said Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung. “This reeks of desperation because everyone knows they are on life support.”
The DeSantis group’s commercial mirrors a salvo from the Republican Accountability PAC, an anti-Trump group that’s reserved $105,000 in ads on Fox News this week with a similar ad saying Trump should “focus on his own campaign, not trashing Governor Reynolds.”
After a small polling bump following his campaign launch on May 24, DeSantis now trails Trump by 34 percentage points in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls — exactly where he was when he announced. The DeSantis campaign and its super PAC had been largely dark on airwaves in early voting states for the past two weeks.
(Updates with Trump campaign comment in ninth paragraph)