Pressures four GOP senators

Pro-impeachment group pressures four GOP senators with new ads

The Need to Impeach ads target Republicans up for reelection in 2020.

By MAGGIE SEVERNS

The Democratic group Need to Impeach is airing new ads pushing four Republican senators to remove President Donald Trump from office, as public pressure campaigns surrounding impeachment ratchet up.

The ads — which are starting to air this week, as the House votes on an initial impeachment resolution — target Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) and Martha McSally (R-Ariz.). All four will face voters in 2020, and Need to Impeach believes that constituent pressure could push GOP senators to break ranks and vote to remove Trump in an eventual impeachment trial.

Need to Impeach is spending $3.5 million on its current ad campaign, and may expand that spending.

“Should a president pressure a foreign leader to intervene in our elections?” a narrator asks in the ads.

The ads feature comments from Trump and other White House staff, including a statement Trump made in September, about whether he threatened to withhold aid to Ukraine over investigating former Vice President Joe Biden’s family: “I could have. I think it would probably, possibly have been okay if I did,” Trump says.

The ads conclude by urging viewers to contact their senators: “Tell Senator Collins it’s time to put country over party,” the ad in Maine concludes.

Need to Impeach’s previous ads appealed to lawmakers' sense of patriotism on the issue of impeachment. But the new ads are more focused on “dropping individual senators into this mess that’s going on in Washington,” said Kevin Mack, lead strategist for Need to Impeach, and the group is continuing testing strategies to see how to persuade voters, especially Republicans, to pressure their senators on the issue.