American Values 2024 (AV24), a super PAC backing independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., launched an ad campaign on Monday with the message that “Only Kennedy can beat President Trump.”
The approximately $310,000 ad campaign is targeting Washington, D.C., and New York City. Over the course of a week, the message “Only Kennedy can beat Trump” will appear on bus stops, billboards in Midtown Manhattan, and mobile trucks, according to an AV24 press release.
The ad campaign is part of an effort to bring more attention to the Kennedy campaign, which has long argued it is not receiving enough attention during the election.
“During this election, we witnessed the most corrupt political parties in American history collude with the mainstream media and major tech companies to prevent voters from hearing from all candidates for president and paralyze the democratic process,” AV24 co-founder Tony Lyons said in a press release.
The latest ad campaign aims to allay concerns about a lack of airtime devoted to covering Kennedy’s campaign.
In New York, three LED trucks bearing the message “Only Kennedy can beat Trump” will travel around the city and stop outside major news networks including Fox News, CNN, NBC, ABC and WarnerMedia’s New York headquarters, as well as in front of the studios where ABC’s “Good Morning America” is taped, according to a press release.
From Monday through Sunday, Aug. 4, the same message will be displayed on two billboards in Midtown: one at the intersection of Broadway and West 54th Street and the other at the intersection of Broadway and West 52nd Street.
The advertising campaign will take a similar approach in Washington, D.C., where, according to a press release, “a convoy of six billboard trucks” will travel around the city for eight hours each day, “focusing on high traffic areas including national monuments, tourist attractions and the Capitol.”
In Washington, 95 static signs will be installed in “premium traffic shelter units” through Friday. The press release included a photo of several trucks carrying the signs lined up outside a Washington, D.C. news network.
The ad campaign comes amid a slight surge in Democratic enthusiasm following Vice President Harris’ emergence as the party’s leading candidate.
Larry Sharp, president of a super PAC supporting Kennedy, said in a press release that Kennedy is the best candidate to defeat former President Trump in November, even if President Biden drops out of the race.
“No matter who the Democrats nominate, they can’t beat Trump,” Sharp said. “That’s exactly the sacrifice the Democrats made, and America needs to recognize that it’s a sacrifice they can’t win. Now the race is between Kennedy and Trump.”
The super PAC cited a poll conducted by Zogby Strategies that showed Trump leading Harris by 2 points, but Kennedy ahead by 14 points in a head-to-head race.
The latest national polling average from The Hill/Decision Desk has Trump leading Harris by two points in head-to-head races. In three-way races that also include Kennedy, the polling average has Trump leading Harris with 44 percent support, while Kennedy trails with 5 percent.
Democratic National Committee spokesman Matt Corridoni criticized Kennedy for the ad campaign, saying, “He was recruited to run by MAGA Republicans and is backed by Trump’s biggest donors, and Kennedy’s own staff says it’s aimed at hurting Democrats in this election.”
“RFK Jr. [Republican National Convention] “He was seeking favor in exchange for a job in the Trump administration. His involvement in the backroom political dealings that RFK Jr. claims to abhor means he knows he won’t get into the White House if he runs as an obstructionist,” Corridoni added.
