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"We’ve got a lot of work left to do in these final days, but we’re feeling good about where we stand," he tells John Casey.
I watch a lot of football, and that means I’ve been subjected to a horrendous ad by former President Donald Trump that inexplicably makes transgender prisoners’ gender care a campaign issue — when it doesn’t even rank in the top 50 concerns of voters, at least according to my scorecard.
Trump blames this “travesty” on Vice President Kamala Harris, and I “got it,” meaning, I realized the audience for this ad was bros, macho bruiser guys. Trump thinks going after trans inmate care makes him more of a man to these folks. And I’m afraid to say that it’s probably working. I kept wondering when someone was going to come along and trash this ad.
Well, someone did, and in a magnanimous way. In a new ad, the Lincoln Project has set its sights on a misleading attack from Trump’s campaign that wrongly targets Vice President Harris over gender-affirming care for inmates.
Trump’s ad claims Harris supported a policy that allows federal prisoners to receive gender-affirming surgery, a point designed to stoke cultural fears. As we reported yesterday, a recent New York Times fact-check revealed, this was actually a policy enacted during Trump’s own administration in 2019, a fact conveniently omitted from his absurd rhetoric and offensive and false ad.
You can see the ad here. And just like those reels that say “wait for the ending,” wait for the ending on this one. It’s spot-on and bound to get under Trump’s skin.
I reached out to Rick Wilson, a cofounder of the Lincoln Project and a longtime Republican strategist. We had a lengthy call, talking not only about the brilliance of this new ad calling out another one of Trump’s lies but also how he sees the race progressing. I only had half an hour with Wilson. We’d still be on the phone if my time was unlimited. Luckily for him, it wasn’t.
Wilson said the Lincoln Project was also, like me, waiting for someone to come along to counter the ad, so the group took matters into its own hands. “We did a quick scan of the polling on it, and what we discovered was that it was really working on young, young noncollege white men, young Black men, and young Hispanic men,” Wilson reported. “But he's once again lying to them and once again telling them a story that he knows is false and is a lie.”
The group's new ad is designed to expose this deception about who initiated the trans care policy, Wilson explained. "Trump's trying to weaponize this issue," he said. "But he's lying to his own base about it. It's his policy, and he's trying to blame Harris. We're here to remind voters who started it and how Trump is manipulating them."
The Lincoln Project’s members realized they have to keep hitting on Trump for all the lies he’s broadcasting in his ads, Wilson said. “We're going to peel off people that were soft on him on other issues,” he stated. “You know, it's like the temptation is to hit him in the mouth, but we hit him in the spleen instead. So we're going to peel off other people that find this whole thing offensive and tiresome and gross. We want to expose Trump as the liar he is and how he’s willing to pit people against each other.”
As the 2024 presidential race enters its final stretch, Wilson offered insight into how the campaign is shaping up. The Lincoln Project is increasingly optimistic about its efforts to peel away Republican voters from Trump. "Our model in 2020 showed we could pull between 3 to 8 percent of Republicans in key states, and we ended up at 4.96 percent. This year, our model is much stronger," Wilson explained. "We're looking at a range between 11 and 17 percent in some places, and we're pretty confident we're going to hit at least 12.5 percent. And that's the ball game."
Wilson acknowledged that while the numbers are promising, the race is far from over. “It’s still going to be close in a lot of places,” he said. “There are divided states where voter sentiment remains volatile. Trump is going to contest the election no matter what, but we’re guardedly optimistic with just two weeks to go.”
One of the key challenges, according to Wilson, is the presence of "shy" voters — Republicans who plan to vote for Harris but are reluctant to admit it publicly. Wilson said this phenomenon was present in 2016 with voters who supported Trump but wouldn’t say so. In 2020, some “shy” voters favored Biden, and Wilson believes the same is happening with Harris.
“There are a lot of shy Harris voters who just don’t want to tell anybody, and that’s fine,” he said. “The Lincoln Project is capitalizing on this sentiment with a new ad aimed at these quiet defectors, reminding them that ‘it’s private. It’s your vote. Nobody has to know.’”
I told Wilson this election is giving me an overdose of angst and that I’m taking in almost too much information, which leaves my head spinning, as well as having moments of euphoria for dreams of Harris winning and then convulsions about the nightmare that Trump might win.
So, in other words, I was trying to get Wilson to validate my behavior, and he advised caution. "Ignore the polls, ignore the pundits — but of course, we all check them every morning, right?” he joked. “It's human nature. While polls can sometimes manipulate enthusiasm, they’re still an essential tool in tracking voter sentiment.”
On the data front, the Lincoln Project's digital strategy is more advanced than ever, Wilson said. "We have about 1.4 million voters in our file, spread across seven swing states. We've been targeting them with digital ads for over a year, and we know that many of them have already moved to Harris," he said. "About 15 percent of those voters have already voted for her, and we’re happy with those numbers."
In the final days of the campaign, the Lincoln Project plans to continue focusing on three key demographics: “Red Dog” conservatives, who embraced the Democratic Party when the Republicans went off the rails; pro-choice Republicans; and voters concerned with Trump’s character. Wilson emphasized the importance of hitting Trump on his foreign policy positions and his close ties to authoritarian leaders like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un. “These voters remember the Cold War. They don’t want a president who is cozying up to dictators,” Wilson pointed out.
The Dobbs Republicans — pro-choice voters angered by the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade — are also a crucial target for the Lincoln Project. “These are Republican men and women who are conservative on many issues, but they hate the Dobbs decision,” Wilson observed. “And they have been especially active since the ruling.”
In one of the group's most effective messaging campaigns, the Lincoln Project has been asking Republicans to reflect on Trump’s impact on their values and their children. "Is this the kind of man you want your kids to look up to? Do you want your daughter working with someone who treats women the way Trump does?" Wilson voiced. “We have a recent ad called “Girl in the Mirror,” which has resonated particularly well with Republican women.”
As the campaign winds down, Wilson remains realistic but hopeful. “It’s going to be a close election, and Trump is going to dispute the results if he loses, no doubt about it,” he said. “But we’ve made tremendous progress with these voters, and we’re confident we’ve done everything we can to ensure the truth gets out there.”
In the end, Wilson believes the Lincoln Project’s mission remains clear: to hold Trump accountable for his lies and to offer a compelling alternative vision for Republican voters who are ready to move on. "We’ve got a lot of work left to do in these final days,” he said, “but we’re feeling good about where we stand."
