It’s one of the most-aired ads of the 2024 election: Buddy, a Black man from Allentown, Pennsylvania, watches on a tablet as former President Donald Trump tells a crowd at a fundraiser: “I know about 20 of you, and you’re rich as hell. We’re gonna give you tax cuts.”
Buddy shakes his head. “The 1% don’t serve anybody but themselves,” he says as an image of Elon Musk, the Tesla CEO and top Trump donor, appears on screen. “So for them to get a tax break? Nah, that’s not cool. Kamala Harris is gonna make billionaires pay their fair share.”
While rhetoric from Harris, the vice president and Democratic presidential nominee, often focuses on the extraordinary threat posed by Trump to the United States’ democracy and institutions — she notably agreed he is “fascist” — the case her campaign and its allies are making on the airwaves and in digital advertising is much more pedestrian: Trump is just another Republican who wants to cut taxes for the rich, slash Social Security and (further) ban abortion.
With light editing, many of the ads could have been run against any Republican presidential nominee in the past quarter-century, but Democratic strategists working on one of the tightest presidential contests in recent memory say airing them against Trump is more important because of how the Republican has tried to break away from these unpopular GOP positions, even after he implemented a fairly standard Republican policy agenda as president.
“In 2016, Trump was able to convince some voters he wasn’t Republican on abortion, Social Security and taxes,” said Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic strategist involved at the top levels of both the 2016 and 2024 races. “But he can’t in 2024 because he now has a record on all of them: tax breaks for the rich, cuts to Social Security and overturning Roe v. Wade. His ability to disown the Republican brand doesn’t work anymore.”
The result, as Ferguson put it: “He’s blended the policy agenda of Paul Ryan and the character of Caligula.”
For what it’s worth, most of the ads do not exclusively focus on Trump, with CNN finding more than half of Democrats’ $55.2 million in ad spending in the first half of October went to so-called contrast ads comparing Trump with Harris.
“Regardless of whether you are looking at a swing voter who’s not engaged or a more base Democrat, these are top concerns either way,” said Bryan Bennett, the lead pollster for the Democratic polling group Navigator Research. “People are hearing a much more positive story from Kamala Harris about who she’s going to fight for.”
To the extent the ads mention Trump’s authoritarian character, it’s to highlight the possibility of Trump ramming through this agenda, typically by tying him to Project 2025, the plan cooked up by conservative think tanks to increase Trump’s power in a second term.
“Donald Trump makes a lot of promises, but we can be sure of one thing: If he wins, he’ll ignore all checks that rein in a president’s power,” actor John Doman says in the narration of the ad focusing on his authoritarianism. “It’s all in Trump’s Project 2025 agenda. What does that mean for you? Higher cost on groceries, cuts to Social Security and Medicare, more tax breaks for billionaires, and a national abortion ban putting women’s health at risk.”
Trump has famously tried to distance himself from Project 2025, despite the lead roles many of his political allies played in crafting the document. He’s also insisted he supports leaving decisions on abortion rights to the states, but has been cagey on whether he would sign a national abortion ban — although he has publicly taken credit for the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Democrats have waged a long campaign to get voters to associate Trump with abortion bans. When the progressive polling group Data for Progress surveyed voters in December 2023, a mere 24% of voters said Trump should be held responsible for abortion restrictions across the country. Only 48% of voters thought Trump would attempt to pass a national abortion ban.
“A giant red alarm bell went off for us,” said Danielle Deiseroth, the group’s executive director. “It was really emblematic of this greater trend of voters not really connecting Trump to classic Republican policy positions.”
But Deiseroth said months of Democratic advertising have moved voters. Now a full 36% of the electorate blames Trump for the bans, and 55% of likely voters, including 59% of women, believe he’ll try to pass a national abortion ban.
The Harris campaign’s latest ad on the issue, released Wednesday, features a Texas woman named Ondrea recounting how her state’s strict anti-abortion laws restricted doctors’ ability to treat her immediately after she lost a pregnancy at 16 weeks, resulting in a six-hour emergency surgery, a massive scar, and the possibility she will never again be able to conceive.
“He did this to me,” Ondrea says in the ad, referring to Trump.
(Warning: The video contains graphic medical images.)
Social Security is the issue where Trump has gone the furthest to muddy the waters, and a Data for Progress poll conducted in September found there was legitimate voter confusion on the issue. His campaign is running ads claiming Harris would allow undocumented immigrants to earn Social Security and Medicare, which he implies would bankrupt the program. The implication is untrue: Undocumented immigrants make the finances of both programs stronger since they pay into the program but do not earn benefits.
Additionally, an analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget found Trump’s plans, including his proposals for the mass deportation of 20 million undocumented immigrants, would “dramatically worsen Social Security’s finances.” Trump also sought to cut Social Security Disability Insurance while he was president.
The Democratic ads on the topic do not differ much from a formula the party has used for years. One ad from FF PAC features a retired woman named Sharon delivering the attack lines.
“Cutting Social Security is like giving the middle finger to the middle class,” Sharon says in the 30-second ad. “Kamala Harris will protect Social Security.”
These and other ads have helped Harris close the gap with Trump on the economy in a race after he developed a major edge over President Joe Biden on the issue before Biden’s exit from the race this summer.
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An Associated Press poll released Monday contained optimistic numbers for the vice president: Voters trusted her, 46% to 36%, over Trump on who would better handle middle-class taxes, while the candidates were essentially split on jobs and employment and the cost of groceries and gas.