Judicial Crisis Network launches $3 million ad campaign for Barrett

Marianne LeVine
·2 min read

The Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative legal group, will spend $3 million on a television and digital advertisement calling for the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court — part of a broader $25 million conservative push for the nominee.

The ad buy, first reported by POLITICO, will air within three hours of Trump officially announcing Barrett as his pick. It comes on top of a $2.2 million ad buy previously made in Senate battleground states. The Judicial Crisis Network is expected to spend $10 million in the next 30 days on Barrett’s nomination.

The latest ad, titled “From Her,” will air nationally on cable as well as in Colorado, Iowa, Maine, North Carolina, Utah and Washington, D.C. The ad features Barrett delivering a speech declaring that “courts are not arenas for politics” and includes an image of Barrett with her family. The narrator in the ad describes Barrett as an individual “grounded in faith and family” and declares her the “perfect choice to follow Justice Ginsburg.”

The advertisement comes as conservative groups are gearing up for a fierce partisan fight to fill the seat left by the late liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The Senate Judiciary Committee will begin confirmation hearings Oct. 12.

The advocacy group will also launch a website and a rapid response team.

“We have definitely scaled up our team,” said Carrie Severino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network, in an interview. “We have more resources. I think we get better every time.”

The Judicial Crisis Network also spent millions on the confirmations of Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.

Other conservative groups are also moving quickly to support Barrett’s nomination. The Club for Growth is planning to spend $5 million, CatholicVote.org is slated to spend $2.5 million to $3 million, America First Policies will spend at least $5 million, Susan B. Anthony List is expected to spend over a million dollars and Heritage Action will spend $3.5 million.

Barrett is expected to get broad support from Senate Republicans and unanimous opposition from Senate Democrats, who want to see Ginsburg’s vacancy filled by whoever wins the Nov. 3 presidential election.