WASHINGTON — Gun safety group Giffords is launching a $15 million campaign to help the de facto Democratic presidential nominee. Kamala Harris He defeated his Republican opponent Donald Trumpalso help House candidates in battleground states favoring stricter gun laws.
The new spending blitz, first reported by NBC News, will include paid TV and digital ads, direct mail (in English and Spanish), new surveys to help allies refine their messages, and the deployment of staff and surrogates, including a co-founder. The group, former Rep. Gabby Giffords, D-Ariz., to appease and turn out voters. The group is focusing those resources on swing states like Michigan and Arizona, as well as California and New York, where a series of competitive races could decide control of the House.
“Battleground state voters consistently rank gun violence among their top concerns,” Giffords executive director Emma Brown said in a phone interview. “The issue is actually the movement of votes and it can really affect the election results. So this year, we plan to use our resources, especially $15 million, to support gun safety champions and communicate directly with voters who are uniquely mobilized by guns in key battleground races across the country.
Brown declined to comment on whether Harris, the group’s co-founder, Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., had vetted Giffords’ husband, a former Rep., saying he was not involved in “vice presidential speculation.” “
With mass shootings now a common feature of American life, Giffords’ internal research found that not only did gun legislation have high support, but it also attracted voter groups with the power to decide elections — primarily suburban women, Latinos and black voters. Brown said that “the perception of Democrats improved when we were on the gun message.”
The contrast between the presidential candidates is sharp. Harris is already leaning into the issue, saying in an introductory video that his campaign is about “the freedom to be safe from gun violence.” In a speech at the American Federation of Teachers on Thursday, he said of Republicans: “We want to ban assault weapons, and they want to ban books.” In 2019, Harris confirmed mandatory buyback program of military-style weaponsWhat Republicans attack as “gun confiscation.”
Trump, by contrast, has secured the endorsement of the National Rifle Association and is campaigning as a staunch supporter of gun rights. He has he called himself “The most pro-gun, pro-Second Amendment you’ll ever see in the White House” and argued that mass shootings are not a “gun problem.”
But as a sign that the Republicans are beginning to see the reason for what they have long termed as a political defeat, the party 2024 platform it doesn’t mention guns or the Second Amendment. The The platform section of Trump’s website ignores the issue.
Harris and Democrats have called for requiring universal background checks for gun sales, reinstating the ban on semi-automatic weapons and reinstating the ban on bump stocks. Trump and most Republicans rejected those proposals, though some GOP senators supported modest new measures in 2022 to include juvenile records in background checks and domestic violence restrictions.
Trump has nominated judges and Supreme Court justices who are skeptical of gun restrictions, while Harris will select judicial nominees who believe the Second Amendment does not place significant restrictions on firearms.