Planned Parenthood launches six-figure ad buy against Collins on Kavanaugh

Planned Parenthood Action Fund is going up with a six-figure ad buy targeting GOP Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) as the fight over Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh enters a crucial stretch.
The group’s ads, which were provided to The Hill before their release, will go up Wednesday in Maine on both broadcast and cable, as well as online.
“Senator Collins asked to hear from Mainers and here they are, loud and clear, asking her to oppose the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court,” said Dawn Laguens, the executive vice president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund.
{mosads}Laguens added that Maine women “know that Kavanaugh would overturn Roe and chip away at access to safe, legal abortion if given the chance. … Senator Collins needs to listen to the women of Maine and continue to stand up for their most basic freedoms by opposing Brett Kavanaugh.”
The new ad buy comes as Collins is facing an onslaught of pressure to oppose the nomination. Democrats need to win over two Republicans, as well as keep their caucus completely united, in order to sink Kavanaugh.
Two outside groups have raised more than $1.1 million they say they will donate to Collins’s eventual 2020 Democratic challenger if she votes for Kavanaugh. Her staff also say they are getting “vulgar” calls over the nomination.
The Planned Parenthood ads going up on Wednesday include women from a focus group conducted of swing voters in Maine explaining their concerns about Kavanaugh and why they believe Collins should oppose him.
In one ad, the group focuses on how some of Kavanaugh’s records haven’t been turned over to the Judiciary Committee.
“If you vote yes for something without knowing the full story, that’s irresponsible, like you’re not doing your due diligence,” one participant says in the ad, which is entitled “Not Enough Information.”
Another participant adds: “We haven’t been told a lot about what he has done in the past.”
Senators have been in a heated fight over decades of Kavanaugh’s documents.
Republicans refused to ask for documents from his three-year tenure as staff secretary to former President George W. Bush and some paperwork from his time as a White House lawyer either hasn’t been cleared for public release or was withheld from the committee.
In another ad being released Wednesday by Planned Parenthood, the focus group talks about how Collins has been bipartisan and could be a leader in the Supreme Court fight.
“If she really, really believes in women’s rights and what she’s saying then she needs to stand up,” a participant of the focus group says in the ad.
Seven of the women in the focus group self-identified as independents; one self-identified as a Democrat. Seven of the eight characterized themselves of supporters of Collins’s 2014 reelection bid, according to a release from Planned Parenthood.
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