Donald Trump, who’s in a tight fight with Ted Cruz in Iowa, is poised to do well in the fast approaching Feb. 1. caucuses, but not if Our Principles, a new anti-Trump super PAC, can help it.
In the final seven days before the first votes are cast, the PAC, led by Katie Packer, a former aide to 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, is debuting a seven-figure TV ad buy aimed at making voters doubt Trump’s commitment to advancing a conservative agenda.
According to TrumpQuestions.com, a website created by the PAC, the billionaire Democrat-turned-GOP front-runner has a lot to answer to when it comes to his previous positions he’s held and recent comments he’s made about immigration, healthcare, taxes, abortion and the Supreme Court.
“Trump is a master salesman,” Packer told the Washington Examiner. “He says whatever is necessary in a given audience in order to convince people, but the bottom line is he may be a lot of things but he’s not a conservative.
“I’m not altogether sure he’s a Republican,” she added.
Though Trump has faced scrutiny before for his flip-flopping on a myriad of issues — most recently in a widely publicized editorial by the late William F. Buckley’s National Review — Packer says most Americans who currently support, or are considering backing the businessman, have yet to be made fully aware of his track record.
“I don’t think this is information that is commonly known among average voters,” she said, noting that the PAC’s research has indicated that “most rank-and-file voters have not seen this kind of information.”
Packer continued, “Certainly his personality and his bombast are something voters are drawn too, but most voters think he’s conservative enough because he says he is.”
“The truth is, he says a lot of things that he isn’t and he doesn’t really have any philosophical answer,” she said.
While declining to get specific on what additional efforts Our Principles PAC is developing to undermine Trump’s candidacy, Packer said her group will “continue to ask these questions of voters in all of the early voting states, if necessary, until everyone has the information they need to make the right decision on election day.”
As for the ad buy in Iowa, Packer says it will remain on the airwaves “right up until caucus day.”
