Priorities USA Action Launches Prologue; $30 Million Digital Media Campaign to Define Likely Republican Presidential Candidates Ahead of 2028 Cycle
Prologue is the First Digital Media Program of 2028 Cycle, Starting with J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio, Before Republican Presidential Campaigns Get Underway
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Priorities USA Action today launched the first digital media program of the 2028 cycle, a $30 million dollar effort to define J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio before the presidential campaign gets underway. The program will run from now through the end of the Republican presidential primary.
The four initial ads – Trickle Down With JD Vance; The Little Marco Invasion Action Playset; Vance Did That!; Rubio to Blame – tie J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio to the harmful actions of the Trump administration in a digitally native tone and format built to reach viewers who aren’t paying attention to politics. By launching now, ahead of the midterms and before GOP presidential candidates announce, Priorities is taking the fight to Republicans on Democratic terms with an always-on commitment to paid, earned, and organic media – not just in a campaign’s final stretch. Reaching voters effectively means becoming a consistent presence in the communities they form online, year-round and between cycles.
Two of the four ads are satirical by design, built for the social feeds where viewers actually spend their time. Each spot is designed to stop the scroll on its visuals alone, drawing viewers in before they realize they’re watching political content. Each ad makes the connection personal: Vance and Rubio aren’t just adjacent to the Trump administration’s least popular policies, they own them — from an economy stacked against voters to misplaced priorities abroad.
“One of the biggest lessons from 2024 is that Democrats don’t know how to use their time – they only know how to use money in the final sprint. That ends now,” said Danielle Butterfield, President and Executive Director of Priorities. “Prologue is built on a simple premise: the voters who will decide 2028 are already online, they’re just not paying attention to politics yet. Reaching them means becoming a consistent presence in the communities they form online, year-round and between cycles. We have a critical window to define likely GOP presidential candidates, and Priorities is capitalizing on it now.”
According to Priorities’ research, 42% percent of voters don’t actively seek out political content, but they are online – gaming, watching sports, scrolling TikTok, living inside communities that are already pulling them in a direction. Ignoring these voters is not a neutral act. Someone is already talking to them, and Priorities will be in that conversation.
The program targets an estimated 9.5 million digital-first voters across Rust Belt (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin) and Sun Belt (Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada, Georgia) states, with a particular emphasis on young voters. Targets include: first-time voters, college students, and nonvoters; voters who are tuning out politics but are perpetually online and reachable through behavioral targeting; and voters in right-leaning online spaces who are dissatisfied with President Trump.
The program is backed by Priorities’ original public opinion research, which found that Rubio remains largely undefined, particularly among young voters. At the outset, 38% of voters under 45 could not rate Rubio positively or negatively; for Vance, that figure was 16%. Voters were polled on messages drawn from both traditional opposition research and online signals – including messages pulled from top-upvoted YouTube comments. After exposure to negative messaging, Rubio’s net favorability dropped 19 points among voters under 45, and Vance’s dropped 13. The research found that proof points tying both men directly to the harms of the Trump administration – threats of gutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the ACA; a rising cost of living; reckless foreign policy – concerned voters more than attacks on personal hypocrisy or legislative records.
These ads are the first in a series of tactics to identify and reach voters across digital communities, including organic clipping and creator partnerships. Priorities will partner with creators in core states through its Creator Corp program, giving them exclusive access to research and including them in focus groups to build a real-time feedback loop between paid messaging and organic performance – iterating on messages until the algorithm latches on, not just when something tests well in a poll.
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