NEW YORK (AP) — The conservative parent rights group Moms for Liberty plans to spend more than $3 million on a multi-state advertising push through November to enhance its membership and attract voters to become politically energetic across the country in 2024.
But the sizable investment brings a twist for a group that had previously said its focus was on local school board elections: It is specifically targeting voters in Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Wisconsin, four states currently in key presidential elections count fall, and some of his first advertising efforts directly criticize the Biden administration. The group hopes to expand its efforts to the three other swing states that will support decide the presidential contest.
The campaign signals Moms for Liberty’s return to the national spotlight after a barrage of bad press and criticism. The group emerged as a rising star in conservative politics in 2021, but faced backlash over various scandals and its efforts to ban mentions of LGBTQ+ identity and structural racism from the classroom.
The coordinated campaign in swing states also raises questions about the group’s intentions and funding. The nonprofit has long described itself as a grassroots movement of like-minded parents. But Moms for Liberty co-founder Tina Descovich told the Associated Press that the modern campaign came about because “investors” had reached out to the group and wanted to see it “grow in certain states.”
She declined to name the funders, and the nonprofit is not required to disclose it as a federally recognized 501(c)4 social welfare group. Federal Election Commission records show that the group’s affiliated PAC, Moms for Liberty Action, has received $161,000 since October from the Restoration PAC, which is funded by conservative billionaire Richard Uihlein. Restoration PAC did not respond to a call from the AP and it was unclear whether its funds supported Moms for Liberty’s latest campaign.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said Moms for Liberty was coy about its true intentions.
“Given the timing of their new push and the fact that they are not disclosing their investors, they tell you two things: First, they tell you that it is not a grassroots initiative. And secondly, they tell you that they are agents for someone else,” Weingarten said.
Descovich said the intent of Moms for Liberty is to “build more grassroots chapters” and that existing chapters support the campaign. She noted that there are only seven chapters of Moms for Liberty in Georgia, where the campaign launched this week.
The advertising campaign will expand to Arizona, North Carolina and Wisconsin next month, Descovich said. The group hopes to promote the campaign in the three other major swing states in the presidential election – Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania – later this year. The Nevada campaign will focus on Clark County, which includes Las Vegas.
Descovich said Moms for Liberty conducted an analysis of its members and found that about 20% were not registered to vote. With that in mind, the group’s goal is to “wake them up and get them to act, not just in local elections, where we offer our support, but at all levels of government.”
Moms for Liberty does not support presidential elections, and Descovich said the group will invite all three top presidential candidates to its annual summit this summer. Still, the modern advertising offensive includes billboards directly criticizing President Joe Biden for his modern Title IX regulations that provide protections for LGBTQ+ students. Moms for Liberty joined several states in suing the Biden administration last week to block those rules.
Biden campaign spokesman Charles Lutvak said Moms for Liberty “denigrates teachers and works to ban books as if we live in Soviet Russia.”
“President Biden is proudly campaigning alongside educators, parents and young Americans to strengthen public education for all Americans and protect our schools from gun violence,” he said.
In addition to the billboards advocating against “gender confusion” and calling for parents to have more of a say in the classroom, the campaign will also include media interviews, targeted digital ads and emails and text messages to voters, Descovich said.
The campaign comes at a time when Moms for Liberty is embroiled in recent scandals, including the recent sexual assault investigation against co-founder Bridget Ziegler’s husband, who left the group shortly after its founding.
Ziegler’s husband, now-ousted Florida Republican Party chairman Christian Ziegler, has since been acquitted of rape and video voyeurism charges. However, news surrounding the incident prompted some members of Moms for Liberty to leave the group and close their chapters, citing differences in values.
Local Moms for Liberty chapters and chapter leaders have also come under fire in the past year. Moms for Liberty removed two chapter presidents in Kentucky last fall after the women posed in photos with members of the far-right group Proud Boys. Last summer, an Indiana chapter of the group apologized and condemned Adolf Hitler after using a quote attributed to the Nazi leader in its first newsletter.
According to an analysis by the Brookings Institution, candidates supported by the group performed disappointingly in school board elections last year despite criticism. Less than a third won their elections.
Descovich said negative stories about the group haven’t hurt its financial support.
“No one has reached out to me and said, ‘We will stop donating to you because of these stories,'” she said. “Everyone understands that the work we do will be subject to intense attack and scrutiny.”
Of the states Moms for Liberty is targeting for the presidential transition, North Carolina is the only one with a state school superintendent race this year. The race pits Republican Michele Morrow, a homeschooling mother and conservative activist who signed the Moms for Liberty Parent Pledge, against Democrat Maurice “Mo” Green, a former Guilford County school superintendent.
Morrow did not respond to a request for comment on Moms for Liberty’s modern campaign. Green sent an emailed statement saying his opponent and Moms for Liberty had “spread conspiracy theories and hateful propaganda that demeans teachers, students and parents.”
“This November, the soul of public education is on the ballot in North Carolina,” he said. “The good news is that I know that the champions of public education, those who believe in the transformative value of public education, will meet this moment and defeat these distorted and misguided views.”
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