With its seven-figure voter engagement effort and ad campaign rolling out Monday, the Libre Initiative, a nonprofit that's affiliated with the billionaire Koch brothers, is taking aim at congressional lawmakers who have supported the Biden administration's "punitive economic policies."
According to The New York Times, the campaign is one of the most sprawling the group has ever undertaken and will include digital ads, events at Hispanic restaurants and grocery stores, and a Spanish language website blasting Bidenomics.
President Joe Biden and the Democrats have struggled to make inroads with voters when it comes to the economy. Libre's leaders told the Times that their focus is on using what they see as a winning issue for Republicans to attract more Latinos to the GOP.
"Bidenomics is devastating Latino families' savings, quality of life, and their ability to plan for the future," Jose Mallea, Libre's CEO, said in a statement. "To reverse this trend, it's critical that Latino families learn what overspending and overregulating are doing to our country's economy — and prosperity."
Libre, which describes itself as center-right, is a sister organization of the Koch network's Americans for Prosperity Action super PAC. The group's leaders told the Times the goal of the new campaign is to call out federal lawmakers for supporting Biden policies they say have caused record inflation and rising living expenses. More than 20 Democrat members of Congress in more than a dozen states, including battlegrounds Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania, are being targeted by Libre's campaign, according to the Times.
Dubbed "BideNOmics," the Libre campaign is going after Senate Democrats in Montana, Nevada, Ohio, and Wisconsin, as well as House members in tight races across the country. The Times reported that the group is taking aim at Reps. Josh Harder and Mike Levin in California, Rep. Gabriel Vasquez in New Mexico, and Rep. Yadira Caraveo in Colorado.
An analysis by the Pew Research Center found that Hispanics are expected to number around 36.2 million eligible voters, which is nearly 15% of the U.S. electorate. This demographic will play a crucial role in Arizona and Nevada, where roughly 1 in 4 eligible voters is Latino. These voters are also expected to play a pivotal role in the battle over the House of Representatives.
A Hispanic woman panning Biden's policies is featured in one of the four digital ads previewed by the Times that are slated to run on social media, television, and audio streaming services.
"Coming to America meant an opportunity to chart your own future," she says in the ad. "But now, Latino families across the country are being forced to make hard choices because of skyrocketing prices, and Bidenomics is robbing us of our chance at the American dream."