Misleading Digital Campaign Created by Conservative Group Distorts Harris’ Positions – FactCheck.org

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Quick Take

A conservative dark money group has fabricated a website and digital ad campaign that purport to share — but often distort — policies supported by Vice President Kamala Harris. As the Democratic presidential nominee, Harris has not proposed a gun buyback program or Medicare coverage for immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, contrary to the conservative group’s ads.

Full Story

A conservative dark money group has created a bogus website, as well as a social media and ad campaign, called Progress 2028 that, on its surface, appears to be led by Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign or allies. But Harris has not proposed most of the policies the website lays out, though she did support some of the policies in the past. Her campaign had nothing to do with the creation of Project 2028.

The top of the Progress 2028 website states: “To: Americans Ready for Progress. Re: How we build a sustainable engine of progressive change to carry us to 2028.” It purports that Harris is “leading the way” on a range of policy proposals and would implement them during her administration.

As reported by OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that follows money in politics, Building America’s Future, a conservative nonprofit, registered Progress 2028 on Sept. 23 with the Virginia State Corporation Commission. According to the New York Times, Building America’s Future has raised tens of millions of dollars that have been steered to groups and initiatives that have worked to elect former President Donald Trump for president.

Distortions of Harris’ Statements

The Progress 2028 website and ads could easily be perceived as efforts of a progressive advocacy group that supports — or even speaks on behalf of — Harris’ campaign.

Comic-like ads on Instagram include a photo of Harris with a heading that states: “Kamala’s plan to end gun violence.” The ad also includes a word bubble that says: “Under Kamala Harris’s leadership, a nationwide gun buy-back program will take dangerous weapons off our streets. Fewer guns = fewer tragedies.” At the bottom of the ad, it states: “Let’s get ready for the next phase in Kamala’s bold progressive agenda.”

The ad leaves the false impression that Harris supports a gun buyback program in her 2024 presidential campaign.

Harris did support a mandatory buyback program for so-called assault weapons as an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination during the 2020 campaign, as we’ve written. She has called for a ban on the purchase of certain semiautomatic weapons as the current Democratic nominee for president, but her campaign told us she no longer supports requiring Americans to give up guns already legally purchased. 

A similarly misleading ad on Facebook says: “Under Kamala’s leadership, undocumented immigrants will no longer be left behind when it comes to critical Medicare access.” In a word bubble next to a photo of Harris, the ad says: “Healthcare status shouldn’t depend on your immigration status. Kamala Harris will fight to expand Medicare for undocumented immigrants, ensuring a healthier America for all.”

(A different version of the Medicare ad is running on Facebook and Instagram. All of the Progress 2028 ads can be found in the Meta ad library.)

As with the anti-gun ad, Progress 2028 is referring to one of Harris’ positions from the 2020 campaign.

During an NBC News presidential primary debate in 2019, Harris raised her hand when a moderator asked the candidates if their health care plans would provide coverage for immigrants who are in the country illegally. When asked during a 2019 interview whether a proposed Medicare for All bill should cover those immigrants, Harris said she was “opposed to any policy that would deny in our country any human being from access to public safety, public education, or public health.” 

But, as we wrote in August, the Harris campaign told us she “will not push Medicare for All as President.” And, as reported by KFF Health News and PolitiFact, Harris has not stated whether she would provide subsidized or free health coverage to those living in the country illegally.

Last year, as governor of Minnesota, Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz, signed legislation allowing low-income immigrants in his state who are living in the country illegally to obtain a health plan through a state program. During an Oct. 6 interview on “Fox News Sunday” about that vote, Walz said, “Well, that’s not the vice president’s position.”

Another Progress 2028 post on Facebook on Oct. 28 included an NBC News headline that reads: “Judge blocks Virginia from dropping alleged noncitizens from voter rolls.” Above it, the message says: “Did you see the news? The Biden-Harris DOJ successfully challenged Virginia’s ‘non-citizen’ voter removal program and won!,” misleadingly adding, “This ensures that no undocumented immigrant is unjustly stripped from voter rolls.”  

A U.S. District Court judge on Oct. 25 did block a Virginia program that aimed to remove alleged noncitizens from the voter rolls. But the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which sued the state, argued “eligible voters” were “wrongfully purged from the voter rolls” through the program. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Oct. 30 that Virginia could continue its removal of about 1,600 people from its voter rolls.

As we have written, a 1996 law bars noncitizens from voting in federal elections — although some jurisdictions such as San Francisco do allow noncitizens to vote in certain local elections. 

We found no evidence that Harris supports allowing undocumented immigrants to vote in federal elections.

Evidence of noncitizens voting in federal elections is extremely rare. The Bipartisan Policy Center’s review of cases compiled by the Heritage Foundation found just 77 cases between 1999 and 2023 of noncitizens voting. 

But Trump has repeatedly made false claims that the 2020 election was rigged due to voter fraud and noncitizens voting, even though his own aides, including his attorney general, told him his claims were baseless. Trump and other Republicans have continued to push the baseless claim that noncitizens will be voting in this year’s election. 

The Dark Money Group Behind the Ads

Dark money groups, such as Building America’s Future, are nonprofits created to influence political outcomes but are generally under no legal obligation to reveal the identity of the donors who fund them, as explained by OpenSecrets.

A pair of political action committees, Duty to America PAC and Future Coalition PAC, for instance, have used Building America’s Future funding to try to convince certain demographic groups, such as younger men, Muslim Americans and Black voters, to support Trump instead of Harris, the New York Times reported.

Building America’s Future has hosted speaking events for Republican candidates, including Pennsylvania Senate candidate Dave McCormick, and it hosted a roundtable on Oct. 29 in the Philadelphia suburb of Drexel Hill for Trump.

According to OpenSecrets, the Progress 2028 website appears to be created on Sept. 23 by IMGE LLC, a Washington, D.C., firm run by Republican political operatives. IMGE President Ethan Eilon, a former senior strategist for the Republican National Committee, and senior partner Phil Cox, a former executive director of the Republican Governors Association, are also leaders of Building America’s Future, the New York Times reported. 

Building America’s Future has received more than $100 million in funding from Republican donors over the past four years, the Times reported, citing people briefed on the group’s work. That includes Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who has actively been stumping for Trump at campaign rallies and on social media in recent months. The billionaire has publicly highlighted the work of another conservative group, Fair Election Fund, that has received funding from Building America’s Future, the Times reported.

Building America’s Future also gave $43 million in 2022 to Citizens for Sanity, another conservative group linked to Stephen Miller, Trump’s former senior policy adviser, the Wall Street Journal reported, based on 2022 tax filings. Citizens for Sanity ran anti-Democratic ads ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. That money was given to Building America’s Future by Musk, the Wall Street Journal added, citing people familiar with the matter. According to a New York Times analysis of its tax filings, Building America’s Future raised, in total, $11 million in 2021 and $53 million in 2022.

According to OpenSecrets, Musk has also donated more than $118 million to another pro-Trump super PAC, America PAC. Since it was founded in May, America PAC has spent more than $163 million, as of Nov. 1, attacking Democrats and supporting Republicans during the run-up to the Nov. 5 election. 

America PAC also recently launched a contest that gives $1 million daily to registered voters in seven swing states who sign a petition supporting free speech and gun rights. The giveaway has been scrutinized by the Justice Department as potentially illegal, and the Philadelphia district attorney filed a lawsuit against the PAC, claiming it’s an unlawful lottery. 

We asked Building America’s Future and Progress 2028 for comment about the website and ads, but they did not respond. 

The Harris campaign would not comment on specific claims on the Progress 2028 website and digital ads, but a campaign aide told us in a statement: “Trump is so damaged by his Project 2025 agenda that he and his backers have resorted to pushing this desperate and pathetic lie to deceive voters.”

Project 2025 is a conservative policy initiative that Harris and Democrats have referred to as “Trump’s Project 2025 agenda.” But it isn’t a Trump campaign document.

The Heritage Foundation, with more than 100 other conservative organizations, created Project 2025, as we’ve written, to provide a roadmap for the next conservative president to fundamentally reshape the federal government. Some of the authors are former Cabinet secretaries under Trump, and others from the Trump administration had a role in the project.

Trump has tried to distance himself from it, saying he disagrees with the document “in many cases.”

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

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