Democratic Campaign Launching To Counter Republican Voter Suppression Laws

A Democratic super PAC is launching a multi-million dollar campaign to counter Republican efforts to suppress the vote. Priorities USA, among the largest Democratic political action committees, is set to announce today that it will spend $20 million on voting rights initiatives in advance of the 2022 elections.

The New York Times is reporting that the group will pursue two avenues to combat Republican-led laws designed to disenfranchise voters, especially people of color, in Georgia, Florida, Arizona, Texas and other states. The digital ad campaign portion of the initiative will go beyond so called “persuasion ads” and will be designed to help people navigate their way through the highly restrictive new laws that Republicans have pushed through in at least 16 states. It also will provide tools like text message reminders for people to register to vote or to request an absentee ballot.

Another significant investment will come in the courts. Priorities USA already is one of the leading litigators in voting lawsuits around the country, having joined lawsuits in 10 states after the 2020 election where supporters of twice-impeached, one-term former president Donald Trump attempted to overturn the certified, legitimate results of the vote count.

“The purpose of this program is to really center the voters who we know are particularly targeted by the Republicans’ suppression efforts,” said Danielle Butterfield, the executive director of Priorities USA. “Those are voters of color, Black and Latino voters specifically, and we plan to center them both in our creative and our targeting to make sure that they are aware of how empowering voting is.”

“We’re starting this conversation early because we want to make sure we raise the alarm bells early about how much work needs to be done to respond to these Republican efforts,” Butterfield said.