Take Trump down

Club for Growth aims to take Trump down in South Carolina

By Eliza Collins

Club for Growth Action is claiming it took down Donald Trump in Iowa, and that it plans to do it again in South Carolina.

The group, which has been consistently attacking Trump's conservative credentials for months, plans to hit the real estate mogul with a $1.5 million ad buy in the state that will start running Saturday on TV and digital platforms.

“Donald Trump is not a conservative,” Club for Growth Action and Club for Growth President David McIntosh said in a statement. “He is a liberal on taxes, health care, eminent domain and government bailouts. His record of bankruptcies and of donating to the Clintons and other Big Government liberals needs to be exposed.”

The group's attacks on Trump date to 2011, when it ran an op-ed in the New Hampshire Union leader with the title, "Trump is not an option for conservatives." In this cycle, the organization has repeatedly warned about the dangers of Trump's iffy conservative stances, and it invested heavily in negative ads against the billionaire businessman in Iowa.

“CFG Action exposed the truth about Trump in Iowa and those ads worked. Track the polling averages from when the ads began in mid-September, and there was a clear and steady decline in Trump’s numbers through October that didn’t end until more than three weeks after the ads,” McIntosh continued in the statement. “The ads worked then and CFG Action is convinced that South Carolina Republicans will also reject Trump’s phony conservative claims.”