The super PAC backing independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential bid, American Values 2024 (AV24), launched an ad campaign on Monday promoting the message, “Only Kennedy Can Beat Trump.”
The nearly $310K ad campaign will target Washington, D.C., and New York City. For one week, the “Only Kennedy Can Beat Trump” message will be on display on bus shelters, on billboards in midtown Manhattan and on mobile trucks, according to an AV24 press release.
The ad campaign is part of an effort to draw more attention to Kennedy’s campaign, which has long argued it has not gotten its due attention during the election cycle.
“During this election cycle more than in any other in U.S history, we have seen how the corrupt two major parties, in coordination with mainstream media and big tech, have prevented voters from hearing the views of all presidential candidates and thereby crippled the democratic process,” AV24 co-founder Tony Lyons said in a press release.
The latest ad campaign seeks to ameliorate concerns about a lack of airtime devoted to covering Kennedy’s campaign.
In New York, three LED trucks will display the “Only Kennedy Can Beat Trump” message as they travel around the city, making stops outside major news networks — including the New York headquarters of Fox News, CNN, NBC, ABC and Warner Media — and in front of the studio where ABC’s “Good Morning America” is taped, according to the press release.
From Monday until Sunday, Aug. 4, the same message will be on display on two billboards in midtown — one on Broadway and West 54th Street and the second on Broadway and West 52nd Street.
The ad campaign will take a similar approach in Washington, D.C., where a “fleet of six billboard trucks” will travel throughout the city for eight hours each day, “focusing on high-traffic areas including national monuments, tourist attractions, and Capitol Hill,” the press release said.
In Washington, there are also 95 static billboards in “premium transportation shelter units” that will be on display through Friday. The press release included a photo of several billboard-displaying trucks lined up outside news networks in D.C.
The ad campaign comes as Democrats enjoy a slight enthusiasm bump from Vice President Harris’s emergence as the party’s likely candidate.
The pro-Kennedy super PAC’s Larry Sharpe said in the press release that, even with President Biden out of the race, Kennedy is the best candidate to defeat former President Trump in November.
“It doesn’t matter who the Dems anoint, they can’t beat Trump,” Sharpe said. “America needs to realize that the sacrificial lamb the Democrats put up, is exactly that, a sacrifice with no chance of winning. The race is now between Kennedy and Trump.”
The super PAC cited a poll conducted by Zogby Strategies showing Trump beating Harris by 2 points, but showing Kennedy beating Trump by 14 points, in a head-to-head match-up.
In the latest national polling average from The Hill and Decision Desk HQ, Trump leads Harris in a head-to-head match-up by 2 points. In a three-way match-up that includes Kennedy, Trump leads Harris, 44 percent support to 42 percent, while Kennedy follows with 5 percent support, according to the polling average.
Democratic National Committee spokesperson Matt Corridoni responded to the ad campaign by criticizing Kennedy, saying he “was recruited to run by MAGA Republicans, he’s being propped up by Trump’s largest donor, and his own staff has said their goal is to hurt Democrats this election cycle.”
“RFK Jr. even went to the [Republican National Convention] looking to exchange an endorsement for a job in a Trump Administration. That RFK Jr. was engaging in the same backroom political deals that he claims to despise shows that he knows his spoiler candidacy isn’t going to land him in the White House,” Corridoni added.
