Trump-Allied Group Targets Democrats in Ads: Campaign Update

(Bloomberg) -- America First Policies, a political nonprofit allied with President Donald Trump, is launching a seven-figure ad campaign attacking House Democrats in Republican-leaning districts for backing the impeachment inquiry, according to a person familiar with the plan.

The ads will accuse Democratic lawmakers from crucial electoral states including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina of breaking campaign promises to address kitchen-table issues like health care or trade, the person said.

The ads are intended to make it difficult for House Democrats in districts the president carried in 2016 to vote to continue the impeachment process, said the person, who was not authorized to talk about the plans of America First Policies.

The spots will start appearing the week of Oct. 14, after a similar campaign from the Republican National Committee stops airing, the person said. A formal announcement of the campaign, which will include ad buys on television and digital platforms, could come as early as this week.

New Trump Ad Calls Impeachment Inquiry a Coup (2:12 p.m.)

President Donald Trump’s campaign unveiled a new ad attacking the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry as “nothing short of a coup.”

The 30-second spot will be shown as part of a planned $8 million ad buy that will run on television and digital platforms.

The ad doesn’t mention the matter Democrats are investigating: Trump’s request to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden and his son, and the actions some in his administration and his private attorney, Rudy Giuliani, took before and after that call. It does mention the whistle-blower whose complaint led to House Democrats beginning an impeachment inquiry.

Instead, it quotes Republican supporters like Senators Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott dismissing the inquiry, and also shows a range of Democratic politicians including Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. -- Bill Allison

Andrew Yang Triples His Haul With $10 Million (12:35 p.m.)

Andrew Yang’s campaign said the entrepreneur and political novice pulled in $10 million in the third quarter, far more than the $2.8 million he raised in the previous period.

Grassroots support drove the surge, with 82% of the contributions from online donors giving less than $200. Online sales of merchandise, including hats, accounted for $2.4 million of the money raised.

The campaign said it ended the quarter with $6.3 million in the bank, a significant increase from the $847,659 it had three months before.

Yang is the fifth candidate to voluntarily report his third-quarter fundraising. Bernie Sanders said he raised $25.3 million, Pete Buttigieg said he brought in $19.1 million, and Kamala Harris said she raised $11.6 million.

Top-polling candidates Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren have yet to release numbers. Candidates must officially report third-quarter totals to the Federal Election Commission on Oct. 15. -- Bill Allison

Democrats Now See Race as Warren v. Biden (12:05 p.m.)

Democratic voters now see the presidential nomination race as a contest between Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden, a September national Monmouth University poll showed.

In the survey released Wednesday, Warren led Biden 28% to 25%, while the rest of the field lagged by double-digits. Bernie Sanders was at 15%, down from 20% in August, and Pete Buttigieg and Kamala Harris were both at 5%. All other candidates in the race received less than 2%. The poll was conducted before Sanders’ announcement Wednesday that he had canceled campaign events “until further notice” after suffering chest discomfort requiring the installation of two stents.

Monmouth’s polling director Patrick Murray said in August that its poll showing Warren leading Biden 20% to 19% was an outlier. In the press release Wednesday, Murray acknowledged this but said the September poll shows a trend.

“The top-line numbers in Monmouth’s August poll may have differed from other polls at that time, but the underlying trend line we saw then has carried over,” he said. “Biden’s drop in the national ‘beauty contest’ is coming mainly from voters in states that hold nominating contests after Super Tuesday.”

The poll also found the only 39% of all voters think President Donald Trump should get a second term in office; 57% said someone new should be elected. The numbers are the same as in Monmouth’s August poll conducted before the House launched its impeachment inquiry. -- Emma Kinery

Harris Urges Twitter to Suspend Trump’s Account (8:29 a.m.)

Twitter Inc. should consider suspending Donald Trump’s account because of “blatant threats” the president made on the social media forum, Democratic presidential hopeful Kamala Harris said in letter to the company’s CEO, Jack Dorsey.

Harris cited a number of tweets by Trump in late September, including his push to have House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff “questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason” and a Sept. 29 tweet citing a conservative pastor’s view that if Democrats succeeded in removing him from office, “it will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal.”

The tweets make “blatant threats that put people at risk and our democracy in danger,” Harris said in the letter. Twitter’s user agreement specifies that it considers the targeted harassment of individuals and attempts to intimidate or silence someone to be abusive behavior.

“No user, regardless of their job, wealth, or stature should be exempt from abiding by Twitter’s user agreement, not even the President of the United States,“ Harris wrote. -- Bill Allison

Biden Proposes Assault Weapons Buyback (5:39 a.m.)

Joe Biden has rolled out a gun safety plan that includes a federal buyback program for assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, an approach that’s already drawn criticism from Trump.

The former vice president unveiled the proposal ahead of attending a March For Our Lives gun violence prevention forum in Las Vegas on Wednesday, along with Democratic rivals Harris, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren and others.

Under Biden’s plan, gun owners would have the option of either selling back to the government their assault weapons or high-capacity magazines or registering them.

As vice president, Biden assisted an ultimately unsuccessful Obama administration effort to expand gun background checks following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

The proposal puts Biden in the a similar camp to rival Beto O’Rourke, whose unabashed support of a stronger mandatory gun buyback proposal during last month’s Democratic presidential debate in Houston drew ridicule from Trump. O’Rourke’s stance has as made it more difficult for Democrats in Congress to reach a deal on gun safety, Trump has charged. -- Kathleen Hunter

COMING UP

Democratic candidates will attend a presidential forum hosted by the 2 million member Service Employees International Union in Los Angeles Oct. 4 and 5. So far, Biden, Warren, Booker, Harris Bernie Sanders and Julian Castro are set to attend.

The United Food and Commercial Workers union will host forums in Iowa with Democratic presidential candidates on Oct. 13. Biden, Booker, Harris, Sanders and Pete Buttigieg and Michael Bennet have confirmed they will attend.

--With assistance from Kathleen Hunter, Kathleen Miller and Emma Kinery.

To contact the reporters on this story: Bill Allison in Washington DC at ballison14@bloomberg.net;Josh Wingrove in Washington at jwingrove4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Max Berley

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