Digital Ad Program in Six States is the Most Recent Project in 314 Action’s $10 Million Advocacy Campaign
October 22, 2021
PHILADELPHIA — Earlier this week, 314 Action, which works to elect scientists to office, launched a new digital ad program in six states focused on GOP leaders’ refusal to condemn the dangerous, anti-science conspiracy theorists targeting school board members and students across the country. These ads are part of 314 Action’s $10 million cycle-long, nonpartisan advocacy campaign, which will address issues critical to the science community.
“So it’s either you’re for the violent mob or you’re against it,” Josh Morrow, the executive director of 314 Action, told CNBC. “The fact that these school board members are going to these school board meetings and being shouted at, having things thrown at them, having their lives threatened — for us, it’s like, if you think that’s ok, then you are going to own this violent radical mob.”
This digital program focuses on six governors or gubernatorial candidates whose support for anti-science policies have led to violence and abusive rhetoric at school board meetings in their states and across the country.Gov. Greg Abbott (Texas)
In 2022, 314 Action will aim to spend $50 million to elect scientists across all levels of government, with initial targets of seven U.S. Senate races, forty U.S. House races, and twenty-one statewide races.
Take a look at the coverage of our new ads demanding accountability from anti-science GOP leaders:
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CNBC: Pro-science group launches ads to push GOP governors to reject conspiracy theories in education policy
Brian Schwartz, 10/15/21
Key Points
– A science advocacy group is launching a $10 million campaign that includes pushing four Republican governors and a GOP gubernatorial candidate to reject conspiracy theories in education policy.
– The push from the group, which has backed Democrats, comes as debates over vaccines, science and race become more heated — and partisan — in debates about education policy.
– The ads, set to start running this month, will target Govs. Greg Abbott of Texas, Ron DeSantis of Florida, Kim Reynolds of Iowa, Doug Ducey of Arizona, Brian Kemp of Georgia, and the GOP nominee for Virginia governor, Glenn Youngkin.
A science advocacy group that has supported Democrats is launching a $10 million campaign that includes pushing four Republican governors and a GOP gubernatorial candidate to reject conspiracy theories that have led to battles on school boards.
The push comes as debates over vaccines, science and race become more heated — and partisan — in debates about education policy.
314 Action, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization that aims to elect candidates to office with a background in science, technology, math or engineering, plans to spend up to $500,000 in the initial phase of its campaign through the end of the year.
That will include digital ads set to start running this month. Other phases of the campaign will start rolling out next year and through the midterm elections in 2022.
The ads will target Govs. Greg Abbott of Texas, Ron DeSantis of Florida, Kim Reynolds of Iowa, Doug Ducey of Arizona and Brian Kemp of Georgia. Glenn Youngkin, a former executive at the Carlyle Group and the Republican nominee for the governor’s seat in Virginia, will also be targeted.
Abbott, DeSantis, Reynolds and Kemp are all up for reelection in 2022. Youngkin is running against Democrat Terry McAuliffe in this November’s election. Polls have shown a tight race in Virginia.
“So it’s either you’re for the violent mob or you’re against it,” Josh Morrow, the executive director of 314 Action, told CNBC. “The fact that these school board members are going to these school board meetings and being shouted at, having things thrown at them, having their lives threatened — for us, it’s like, if you think that’s ok, then you are going to own this violent radical mob.”
The gubernatorial campaign in Virginia has included debates on how the state should handle public education.
“I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach,” McAuliffe said in a debate last month.
Youngkin has said that if he becomes governor his administration will ban schools from teaching critical race theory. Critical race theory is an academic approach to studying the impact of racism that is taught at the college and graduate school level. But more recently the term has been used to describe any anti-racism discussion or even any mention of race in schools. Republicans have largely opposed the teaching of critical race theory.
The 314 Action ads, which were first reviewed by CNBC, depict violence across the country before segueing into images of people pushing conspiracy theories at school board meetings.
“The violent fanatical right, driven by anti-science conspiracies,” the voiceover says. “Republican leaders are dangerously silent as the violent fanatical right rages.” The spots then call on each governor and Youngkin to “side with science and reject right-wing violence in our school boards.”
Many of the clips used in the ads are identical to the ones from a video montage put together by The Recount.
Other aspects of the campaign will start becoming public in the first quarter of 2022. Those next phases will include a digital ad praising Rep. Sean Casten, D-Ill., for “believing in vaccines.” Casten has a master’s degree in engineering management and a master’s in biochemical engineering.
314 Action publicly discloses its donors. It has been behind previous efforts taking aim at some of the same governors it is targeting in the new $10 million campaign.
Several physicians and scientists have each contributed over $10,000 this year to 314 Action, according to the group’s website.
The group says they worked to help Democrats in 2018 and 2020, including Sens. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., a former astronaut, and John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., a geologist.
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Arizona Mirror: Ducey among governors targeted in new ad campaign for ‘anti-science’ COVID policies (reprinted by Tucson Sentinel and excerpted in Blog for Arizona)
Jerod MacDonald-Evoy, 10/20/21
A political action committee that aims to elect candidates with backgrounds in science and engineering is spending $10 million against Republican governors and gubernatorial candidates in six states who back “anti-science” COVID-19 policies, including Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey.
“We are going to hold Governor Ducey accountable on a number of anti-science measures,” Joshua Morrow, executive director of 314 Action, told the Arizona Mirror. “We are going to become very good friends.”
The first set of ads specifically target the violent rhetoric that has been seen in Arizona and across the country at school board meetings related to mask mandates aimed at mitigating the spread of COVID-19 in schools.
Arizona was at the forefront of the issue with one of the first major incidents occurring in the state in the small Southern Arizona town of Vail. The protest would lead to further protests across the state and changes to how school boards operated. Now the FBI has even begun to investigate threats made to school board members across the country as school board protests continue.
314 Action is planning to make this issue part of their current campaign, which highlights Ducey’s silence on the issue along with governors and gubernatorial candidates in Texas, Florida, Georgia, Iowa and Virginia.
Ducey signed a law earlier this year barring school districts from enacting mask mandates on students, staff and visitors, but a judge last month ruled the law was unconstitutional. Ducey and the state are appealing the ruling.
The governor has fought with advocates for masking in schools and has also recently taken heat from the administration of President Joe Biden for his stance on masks due to a grant program that gives COVID-19 federal funds to schools that don’t have mask mandates.
The Treasury Department ordered Ducey to stop the program saying it was not a “permissible use” of the federal monies, the state still has time to respond to the Treasury Department’s order.
The video ad will be played on Facebook, local news and other digital platforms, and 314 Action says it is targeting “college-educated Republicans” who disliked the messaging of “Trump-era” politics, Morrow said.
Morrow admitted that Arizona does have a population that tends to lean more into anti-science beliefs, but said 314 Action’s aim is to continue to target the “Romney/Clinton coalition” that came together after Trump’s 2016 election that swung the state blue in 2020.
“The next time (Ducey) goes to a country club or sits on the board of a company, we want the people around him to know where he stood on this issue,” Morrow said.
Morrow would not say how much of the $10 million will be spent in Arizona.
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Daily Kos: Republican attacks on school boards take center stage in Virginia governor’s race
Laura Clawson, 10/21/21
The group 314 Action, which works to elect scientists to office, is launching a digital ad campaign targeting Youngkin, along with five sitting Republican governors—Greg Abbott of Texas, Ron DeSantis of Florida, Doug Ducey of Arizona, Kim Reynolds of Iowa, and Brian Kemp of Georgia—over the attacks on school board members. It’s powerful stuff:
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Washington Post: The Trailer: “The high ground”: Why Democrats are running on images from Jan. 6
David Weigel, 10/21/21
314 Action, “Fanatical: Youngkin.” McAuliffe and his allies were slow to react to Youngkin’s campaign focus on school board protests. One reason: They assumed that voters would see the footage of angry people and side against them. This spot tries to make that reaction happen with clips of a vehicle being flipped over and protesters yelling at police, and two clips of school board protesters sounding unhinged — one of them warning of “demonic entities.”
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Politico: Florida Playbook: Republicans sidestep DeSantis mandate battle
Gary Fineout, 10/20/21
FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — A science advocacy group that has backed Democrats is launching new digital ads against Gov. Ron DeSantis and five other Republican governor and gubernatorial candidates for refusing to “condemn dangerous, anti-science conspiracy theorists” who are targeting school board members and students. 314 Action, a 501 (c) (4) organization, says these ads are part of a larger $10 million campaign for the current 2022 cycle. The ad targeting DeSantis includes footage of a woman who called Lee County school board members “demonic entities” at a discussion about school mask mandates. “Ron DeSantis can’t be the best leader for Florida if he won’t stand up and condemn this dangerous, anti-science behavior we’re seeing at school board meetings in his own backyard,” 314 Action communications director Alexandra De Luca.
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Atlanta Journal-Constitution: The Jolt: Atlanta NAACP pens ‘rare repudiation’ of former Mayor Reed
Tia Mitchell, Patricia Murphy, and Greg Bluestein, 10/21/21
An advocacy group that works to elect scientists launched a digital ad campaign focused on Gov. Brian Kemp’s “refusal to condemn the dangerous anti-science conspiracy theorists” targeting school board members, organizers said.
The group, called 314 Action, launched the ads as part of a $10 million nonpartisan advocacy campaign for the 2022 cycle.
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Quad-City Times: Campaign Almanac for Wednesday, October 20, 2021 (also in Council Bluffs Daily Nonpareil and Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier)
Erin Murphy, 10/20/21
Kim Reynolds is among six Republican governors or gubernatorial candidates being targeted in a new political digital ad campaign about heated rhetoric surrounding schools’ face mask policies during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The group behind the ad campaign, 314 action, says it is working to elect scientists to office. That ads criticize governors who the group feels have not sufficiently condemned “dangerous, anti-science conspiracy theorists who are targeting school board members and students … across the country,” according to a news release.
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ABC 8 WRIC: Need to catch up on Virginia’s 2021 elections? Here’s the latest
Dean Mirshahi, 10/21/21
Millions in political donations have flooded into campaigns this election season, helping fund a slew of advertisements. Advocacy groups from across the country have also spent millions on ads supporting and targeting Virginia candidates.
314 Action, a pro-science group that aims to “elect more scientists,” launched a digital ad in Virginia this week calling on Youngkin to denounce “anti-science conspiracy theorists who are targeting school board members and students.” The ad is part of a $10 million campaign from 314 Action this election cycle that is targets Republican governors, including Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.
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314 Action is powered by a grassroots community of over six million people working to elect scientists, doctors, and STEM professionals who will use science and facts to address our most pressing issues like climate change and health care. In 2018 and 2020, we played a pivotal role in flipping the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, electing eleven Democratic scientists to federal office, as well as over 100 to state and local offices. In 2021 and 2022, 314 Action will continue working to elect science leaders and defeat climate deniers in Congress and legislatures across the country, as well as advocate for issues critical to the science community, from environmental justice, to voting rights, to reproductive justice, and beyond.