Two groups are pushing for action against climate change with a $1 million ad campaign launched on Tuesday that will try and use wildfires and extreme weather to appeal to moderate voters. The effort will look to reject a handful of battleground Republicans in California and Florida.
The campaign comes from the group Climate Power and the League of Conservation Voters, which are targeting a handful of House districts that flipped from Democrat to Republican in 2020.
"We know that the public is seeing the impact of the climate crisis here and now," Matt Gravatt, the Climate Power's managing director for campaigns and politics, said to CQ Roll Call.
"In these districts, they are seeing extreme heat, drought, wildfires. This is an issue that is front of mind. They are living through it every day."
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The messages are meant to sway moderate voters whom the groups think can help be persuaded to flip the seats back to blue.
One of the ads planned to air in Fresno and Bakersfield targeting California Rep. David Valadao shows images of blazing hillsides, smoldering forests and parched cracked soil.
"Our families are facing a crisis," the narrator of the ad says. "Extreme weather is forcing families to leave their homes, abandon small businesses, suffer through record-breaking heatwaves. But David Valadao turned his back on us." The bottom of the screen then shows the text, "Voting against the Build Back Better plan."
The investments in the campaign come as Democrats work to gain public support for trillions of dollars in federal spending that they say will include the most significant climate action in the country's history.
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The Senate recently passed a bipartisan infrastructure bill that includes proposals to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Lawmakers are also drafting a package to spend as much as $3.5 trillion on Biden priorities.
Most Republican lawmakers are still not convinced that the government should be spending as much as the Democrats have proposed to address climate change. Some are raising concerns that strict new rules in the U.S. will give domestic firms a disadvantage in competition with companies in countries with less stringent regulations.
Some Democrats are betting that the summer's extreme weather events and grim forecasts about the planet's future will help turn public opinion their way, even with what experts say are forces lined up against them heading into midterms.
The spending and taxation package details are still not set in stone, as they are expected to be worked out in various committees over the coming weeks.
Other ads will air on television in Los Angeles and Miami markets, as the groups target Reps. Mike Garcia and Maria Elvira Salazar in the next two weeks.
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Overall, the group expects to spend $450,000 on television ads while also launching $520,000 in digital ads on sites like Facebook and Google.
The group of representatives being targeted includes Garcia and Salazar, as well as California Reps. Young Kim and Michelle Steel and Florida Rep. Carlos Gimenez.
If the Republicans hope to take control of the House, they will need to flip a net of five seats next year.