By Ian Karbal
Penncapital-Star

Sept 3, 2024 – Pennsylvania drivers might begin seeing more billboards featuring ordinary people, like a white-haired, red-shirt wearing man named “Mike,” and a simple message: “I’m a former Trump voter. I’m a patriot. I’m voting for Harris.”

The billboards are paid for by a group called Republican Voters Against Trump, a project of the Republican Accountability PAC, that is hoping the voices of ordinary voters will sway conservatives and independents to support Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, in November.

On Tuesday, the group announced a new $11.5 million campaign that will feature voters like Mike on billboards, online ads and tv and radio commercials in Pennsylvania and other swing states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona.

But the bulk of the spending, $4.5 million, will target Pennsylvania, which could end up being the decisive state in the 2024 election.

John Conway, the D.C.-based director of strategy for Republican Voters Against Trump, is leading the campaign (He claims no relation to perhaps the most famous never-Trumper, George Conway).

“Our campaign is built on the idea that you need to establish permission structures in order to get voters who have historically identified as Republican to vote against their party’s nominee,” Conway said. “The ads themselves are coming right from the same people we’re targeting with these campaigns: center-right former Trump voters who don’t want to vote for him again.”

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Conway says the group has collected the testimonies of roughly 300 voters who previously cast ballots for former President Donald Trump, but who no longer support him. They constitute the heart of the new advertisements.