An advocacy group with ties to Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) has started buying a host of digital ads going after Democrats on one of Cotton’s signature issues: U.S. policy toward China.
And while Cotton is up for re-election this year, none of the ads are running in Arkansas.
Instead, the group, a 501(c)(4) “dark money” nonprofit called America One Policies, is going after a handful of vulnerable congressional Democrats in states and districts that President Donald Trump carried in 2016. Some also happen to be states crucial to any presidential contest, and where a potential future presidential candidate like Cotton might be wise to establish an early political footprint.
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“The Chinese Communist Party lied about the coronavirus, misleading the world, spreading sickness around the globe, killing thousands, costing trillions,” declares one version of America One Policies’ digital ads, which have run on Facebook and Google since mid-June. They feature images of Joe Biden and Barack Obama beside Chinese leader Xi Jinping, and ask viewers to “join our effort to make China pay.”
Three of the group’s ads have called out individual members of Congress, asking viewers to contact Reps. Dave Loebsack (D-IA), Abby Finkenauer (D-IA), and Jared Golden (D-ME) and demand they “hold China accountable.” The other versions of the ad contain the same script, but instead encourage calls to Congress generally. Those versions have targeted Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL), who is facing a difficult re-election fight, and districts held by Reps. Collin Peterson (D-MN), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Matt Cartwright (D-PA), and Anthony Brindisi (D-NY).
America One Policies’ digital ads, which began running last month, are just the latest spots being run in potential 2024 swing states by groups with ties to prominent Republicans considered possible contenders to succeed Trump as the GOP standard bearer. And, like the others, they hint at a strategic effort to win favor with fellow GOP lawmakers.
All of the House members targeted by America One Policies’ ads represent districts carried by Trump in 2016, making them prime opportunities for being flipped in November. Should the Republican Party do just that, Cotton would undoubtedly have some chits to use—and favors to call in—with the winning candidates.
Cotton has engaged in more direct self-promotion as well, unrelated to his 2020 re-election effort. His Senate campaign purchased a digital spot attacking Biden in Minnesota last month, and an anti-Biden banner ad from his PAC has popped up on The New York Times’ website. Two Google ads from his PAC last month targeting Iowa and Michigan were removed from the platform for unspecified violations of its advertising policies.
Though it’s not explicit on its website or in its ads, America One Policies was created by Cotton allies with the goal of promoting the senator’s political endeavors. Its president, Jonny Hiler, was Cotton’s legislative director before joining the vice president’s office in 2017. He’s now a lobbyist at the firm Miller Strategies, which is run by one of Trump’s top re-election fundraisers.
Corporate records show that America One Policies’ board also includes Ted Dickey, a Little Rock real-estate investor and the former chairman of the Arkansas Ethics Commission. Dickey also appears to do business with Cotton; he helps run a trust that Cotton and his wife used to purchase their home in Little Rock last year.
America One Policies doesn’t appear to have done much during its first six months in existence. It told the Internal Revenue Service that it brought in less than $50,000 from its formation last June through the end of 2019. But its ad campaign appears to be up and running now, and while the states and districts it’s targeting are standard fare for a Republican looking to win key legislative seats for his party, some are also in states—Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Iowa—that are crucial presidential battlegrounds.
If America One is running ads with an apparent eye toward crucial districts and states, it’s not the only one. Another group has popped up in recent months and bought a host of digital ads blanketing states that will be key in future presidential contests. And like America One, that group, Stand Up to China, is focused intently on alleged misdeeds by Beijing.
Stand Up to China calls itself a “grassroots advocacy organization, formed to help give American citizens a voice in the policy battles against China.” It was created in January, and has spent nearly $230,000 on Facebook and Instagram ads. The vast majority of them have targeted Florida, but it also recently began running paid ads in South Carolina, New Hampshire, Alabama, Iowa, and Nevada.
Corporate records in Delaware, where Stand Up to China was formed, show that the group is led by Warren Tompkins, a veteran Florida political consultant who, in 2016, led a super PAC supporting Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) presidential bid. Its board of directors also includes Mandy Fraher, whose firm, Something Else Strategies, worked extensively with Rubio’s Senate campaign. A spokesman for the Senate campaign told PAY DIRT that it’s not affiliated with Stand Up to China.
Tompkins wouldn’t say much more. In an email, he simply reiterated the group’s mission. “As I am sure you saw from our corporate records,” Tomkins wrote, “we are a 501(c)4 whose goals are ‘to educate and mobilize the American people, policy makers, and officials about the threats to American prosperity and independence posed by China in commerce, trade, education, technology, intellectual property, military strength, national defense, and other key aspects of American life and to advocate for policies that will protect the American people from those threats.’”
He didn’t respond to follow-up inquiries.
Like America One, Stand Up to China is a “dark money” nonprofit, and therefore is not required to disclose its donors. But at least one of its vendors is apparent from emails the group sends its supporters: Those emails contain links indicating they’re the work of Targeted Victory, a leading Republican digital consultancy.
Targeted Victory’s roster of clients is huge, and it happens to include both of Florida’s Republican U.S. senators, Rubio and Rick Scott.
Scott, like Cotton, has been buying ads far from his home state. But unlike Cotton, Scott’s not even up for re-election this year. He purchased television ad time in Iowa in January attacking Joe Biden in what political observers speculated was an early sign of 2024 presidential ambitions.
Scott’s official political operation isn’t the only group buying ad time on his behalf. Cable news viewers this week were treated to a 30-second spot from a dark-money group called America Next, which hailed Scott’s work to combat the coronavirus—and attacked Democratic Govs. Andrew Cuomo of New York and Gavin Newsom of California, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
An emailed press release announcing the nationwide ad buy last month came from Gail Gitcho, a veteran Republican political strategist who was an adviser to Scott during his 2018 Senate campaign.
America Next was originally created to support former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, and as of its most recent filing with the Internal Revenue Service, covering most of 2018, its board was stacked with Jindal allies. But that tax filing also lists the group’s executive director as Blaise Hazelwood, a veteran Republican pollster who runs the firm Grassroots Targeting.
According to her bio, Hazelwood spearheaded a $35 million independent expenditure effort in support of Scott’s 2018 Senate campaign. That effort mostly took place through a pro-Scott super PAC called New Republican PAC, and FEC records show that the group began paying Grassroots Targeting in late 2017. But those payments didn’t stop after Scott was elected; his campaign continued paying Hazelwood’s firm through last fall.
In October 2018, New Republican PAC also got a $500,000 check from America Next.
