NEW YORK — The conservative parental rights group Moms for Liberty plans to spend more than $3 million on a multi-state advertising blitz to boost its membership and engage voters before November.
Moms for Liberty is making good on a promise it made last year to become more politically active nationwide in 2024.
The investment marks a shift for the group that will focus on voters in Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Wisconsin, four of this year's key presidential battlegrounds.
Some of its initial advertising directly criticizes Joe Biden's government. The group hopes to expand its efforts to the three other battleground states that will help decide the presidential race.
The campaign marks Moms for Liberty's return to the national stage after a run of bad publicity and criticism. The group emerged in 2021 as a prominent player in conservative politics, but has faced backlash for several scandals and for its efforts to remove mentions of LGBTQ+ identity and structural racism from education.
Conservative parent group
The nonprofit has long branded itself as a group of like-minded parents. But Moms for Liberty co-founder Tina Descovich told The Associated Press that the new campaign came about because “investors” have contacted the group wanting to see it “grow in specific states.”
Descovich declined to identify the funders, and the nonprofit is not required to disclose them as it is a federally recognized 501(c)4 social welfare group.
Federal Election Commission records show that the group's affiliated political action committee, Moms for Liberty Action, has received $161,000 since October from another committee — Restoration PAC — funded by conservative billionaire Richard Uihlein. Restoration PAC did not respond to a call from the AP, and it was unclear whether its funding was supporting Moms for Liberty's latest campaign.
Descovich said Moms for Liberty's intention is to “increase the number of grassroots chapters” and that existing local chapters support the campaign. He noted that Georgia, where the campaign began this week, only has seven Moms for Liberty chapters.
The advertising campaign will expand to Arizona, North Carolina and Wisconsin over the next month, according to Descovich. The group hopes to promote the campaign later this year in the other three big presidential swing states: Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Nevada's campaign will focus on Clark County, which includes Las Vegas.
Internal changes
Descovich said Moms for Liberty conducted an analysis of its members and found that about 20% are not registered to vote. With this in mind, he said the group's goal is to “wake them up and activate them to act, not just in these local elections that we support, but at all levels of government.”
Moms for Liberty does not support presidential bids, and Descovich said the group will invite the three leading presidential contenders to its annual summit this summer. However, the new advertising blitz includes billboards directly criticizing Biden for his new Title IX regulations that provide safeguards for LGBTQ+ students. Moms for Liberty last week joined several states in suing the Biden administration to block those rules.
In addition to the billboards, which advocate against “gender confusion” and call for parents to have more of a say in school, the campaign will also include media interviews, targeted digital ads, and emails and text messages to parents. voters, Descovich indicated.
Of the undefined presidential states that Moms for Liberty will focus on, North Carolina is the only one where there are elections for school superintendent this year.
The race will pit Republican Michele Morrow, a homeschooling mom and conservative activist who has signed the Moms for Liberty “parent pledge,” against Democrat Maurice “Mo” Green, former Guilford County schools superintendent.
