Abortion giant Planned Parenthood’s political action arm is preparing to spend at least $45 million on advertising ahead of the 2020 presidential election, massive jump from the $30 million it spent in 2018.
According to Politico, Planned Parenthood Votes will be dumping the cash into key battleground states including Michigan, Wisconsin and Florida, and anticipates spending more by the time they’re through.
Planned Parenthood is ramping up its political activity ahead of the 2020 election. Planned Parenthood Votes will announce later today an initial $45 million investment for a battleground program that will fund grassroots organizing, digital, TV, radio and mail programs.
Their target states include: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The group expects “broader investments” will happen moving forward. It is a significant uptick in spending for the group, which spent a total of $30 million during the 2018 cycle.
The Hill adds the group's campaign will also focus on state races in states that have ramped up restrictions on abortion.
No stranger to the political game, Planned Parenthood, which had previously been receiving about $500 million a year in taxpayer-funded grants through the government, has launched an all-out offensive against Republicans and the Trump administration after President Trump announced earlier this year that federal Title X funding would no longer go to family planning organizations that provide abortions or refer patients for them except in cases of rape, incest or a medical emergency. Rather than comply with the new rule, Planned Parenthood, which performs roughly one-third of all abortions in the United States, withdrew from the $286 million federal program.
The decision came just weeks after the group fired its president, Dr. Leana Wen, after less than a year, reportedly because Wen wanted to shift the organization’s focus on to more comprehensive health care while Planned Parenthood officials wanted to concentrate on political activism and expanding access to abortion.
(Cover Photo: Charles Edward Miller)