MAGA Inc., one of the biggest super PACs supporting Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign, has aired this 30-second ad on television stations in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania over the past week at a cost, so far, of around $4.4 million, according to AdImpact.
Here’s a look at the ad, its accuracy and its major takeaway.
On the Screen
The ad opens with a visual juxtaposition: In the center of the screen we see a younger Kamala Harris as San Francisco’s district attorney. To the left, we see the mug shot of Devaughndre Broussard, who was prosecuted by Ms. Harris’s office and convicted of assaulting and robbing a transit passenger but was sentenced to probation; a year later, he confessed to killing a newspaper editor with a shotgun.
A narrator’s deep voice cuts in, along with big all-caps headlines, as photos of Ms. Harris as a prosecutor flash by: “Liberal Kamala Harris let killers go free.” “Kamala Harris put criminals first.”
Next, a bouquet of roses is shown atop a polished black coffin. A newspaper article is shown about the rape and murder of a nine-year-old girl in Miami, Jessica Lunsford — a mug shot of her killer is shown — which prompted the passage of laws to keep sex offenders away from children.
Then, text is displayed screaming that Ms. Harris, as California’s attorney general, “ignored Jessica’s Law” and “allowed convicted sex offenders to live near schools and parks” — the latter over a black-and-white video clip of a child’s swing, empty but swaying.
Still more images of Ms. Harris flash by, before the ad closes with a clip of Ms. Harris laughing, in slow motion, during her speech at the Democratic National Convention, as a final headline warns: “Kamala Harris always puts criminals first. Don’t make America her next victim.”
The Script
Narrator
“As San Francisco D.A., liberal Kamala Harris let killers go free. And as California attorney general, Kamala continued to put criminals first. After a little girl was raped and buried alive, laws were passed to keep sex offenders away from children. Kamala ignored Jessica’s Law and allowed convicted sex offenders to live near schools and parks.
“Kamala Harris has always put criminals first. Don’t make America her next victim.”
Accuracy
Mr. Broussard was 18 when he was convicted of assaulting and robbing a man along with three juveniles in a 2005 attack caught on a security camera. Ms. Harris’s office said it agreed to a sentence of probation because he was a first-time offender and because prosecutors couldn’t identify which of the assailants committed which particular crime.
Mr. Broussard received a 25-year prison sentence for the fatal shooting of Chauncey Bailey in 2007.
The ad’s more sensational — and equally misleading — claim is that as attorney general of California, Ms. Harris ignored a law meant to protect children from sex offenders.
It’s a reference to a law known as Jessica’s Law, which was passed by California voters in 2006, the year after the rape and murder of a nine-year-old girl in Florida, Jessica Lunsford. Jessica’s Law increased penalties for sex offenders and banned them from living within 2,000 feet of any park or school. Forty-four states enacted similar laws.
But Ms. Harris, who has a history of prosecuting sex criminals, was a supporter of Jessica’s Law. She defended the law in court after a county judge blocked it in 2011, and appealed that ruling all the way up to the California Supreme Court. The state Supreme Court ruled against Jessica’s Law and softened its restrictions on sex offenders, who had argued that the limits made it impossible for them to find housing.
While that ruling was specific to San Diego County, Ms. Harris’s office interpreted it as applying statewide. She ordered California’s correctional system to stop applying the residency restrictions uniformly to all sex offenders. Still, high-risk offenders and those whose crimes involved children under 14 years old remained barred from living near a school, and restrictions for others were to be decided on a case-by-case basis.
The Takeaway
This ad is part of a $100 million battleground-states advertising campaign by MAGA Inc. portraying Ms. Harris as a radical leftist, especially on crime — a version of a Republican law-and-order message that dates back to Richard Nixon.
It’s also meant to block Ms. Harris from pivoting to the center. She has been emphasizing her history as a prosecutor, in part to assuage voters’ concerns that she may be too liberal.
More broadly, the ad is designed to shape the perceptions of voters who say they need to know more about Ms. Harris. David Lee, a pollster for MAGA Inc., asks likely voters in the battleground states whether they feel they know enough about Ms. Harris. He says that most say they do, and that Mr. Trump wins that group, but a small percentage say they need to know more about Ms. Harris, and she is far ahead with those voters.
The super PAC’s strategy is to peel off as many of those voters as possible by portraying Ms. Harris as unacceptably liberal. In an essentially tied race, persuading even a small number of them could be decisive.
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