The American Civil Liberties Union will spend more than $25 million on down-ballot races across the country in this year’s election, aiming to \u201cgo on offense\u201d on issues like abortion rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Officials with the civil liberties group said the planned investment, shared first with NBC News, is its largest ever for an election cycle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ACLU plans to be involved in the U.S. Senate race in Wisconsin, state Supreme Court races in Arizona, Michigan, Montana, Ohio and North Carolina, and several state legislative races in Georgia, Kansas, Michigan, North Carolina and Wisconsin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The group will also allocate money toward supporting the proposed ballot measures seeking to enshrine<\/a> abortion rights in the state constitutions in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada and New York, as well as specific redistricting reform efforts in Ohio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The funds will also go toward organizing multiple \u201cvolunteer deployments,\u201d including ones intended to educate voters on how to respond to efforts by hostile poll monitors this November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is the most amount of money that we\u2019ve spent in an election cycle,\u201d Deirdre Schifeling, who as ACLU\u2019s chief political and advocacy officer oversees the group\u2019s political expenditures, said in an interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat our team is building at the ACLU in a new way is the ability to go on offense. To not just defend civil rights and civil liberties, but to go out and win civil rights and civil liberties,\u201d Schifeling said. “By shaping our electoral environment by communicating with voters about electing the person who\u2019s going to actually support civil rights and civil liberties.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Schifeling called the $25 million investment \u201cgroundbreaking\u201d not only for its size \u2014 the ACLU’s largest electoral investment had previously been about $16 million during the 2020 cycle \u2014 but also because the group created its first federal super PAC, the ACLU Voter Education Fund, to disburse the funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe organization is really, really good on defense, and now we\u2019re also building up the ability to be really good on offense as well,\u201d Schifeling said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite its broad recognition on civil liberties issues, the ACLU only began direct voter engagement recently. Its first voter education program kicked off in 2018, and the group has steadily increased those efforts each cycle since then. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The civil liberties group is officially nonpartisan, so its efforts will focus on issues \u2014 most prominently abortion rights \u2014 and how candidates have positioned themselves on them. The ACLU’s initial investment will only go toward down-ballot races, not the presidential contest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe are nonpartisan, so we do not tell voters who to vote for, but we do give them sharp and clear information on candidates records,\u201d Schifeling said. \u201cThis cycle, we are focused primarily on voter education around what\u2019s at stake in this election and what candidates\u2019 positions are on key issues \u2014 particularly reproductive rights, voting rights and democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The spending will be allocated for direct mail, digital ads, radio ads and door-to-door canvassing. The group aims to build up a grassroots base of volunteers and mobilizing them for door-knocking and phone-banking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Schifeling said the goal in many state legislative races will be \u201cto make sure there is enough of a pro-civil rights, pro-civil liberties\u201d contingent that can uphold or override vetoes by governors in those states on bills pertaining to reproductive rights and voting rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ACLU will also designate some of the money to voter education efforts related to responding to hostile poll monitors and poll watchers this fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Those efforts include \u201cvoter protection work,\u201d and \u201clitigation advocacy\u201d and come partly in response to plans by the R<\/a>epublican\u2002<\/a>N<\/a>ational\u2002<\/a>C<\/a>ommittee<\/a>\u2002<\/a>to build a robust poll monitoring operation ahead of the November election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n