Conservative group plans $10 million effort to soften Harris' Black voter support

A conservative nonprofit group plans to spend $10 million in the hopes of chipping away at Vice President Kamala Harris' key base of Black voter support by criticizing the White House's proposal, which it postponed earlier this year, to ban menthol cigarettes.

The new ad campaign from Building America's Future and Americans for Consumer Protection, described to NBC News by a Building America's Future official, will target primarily Black voters in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina and Wisconsin.

Through digital advertising, text messages and direct mail, the message will try to frame the Biden-Harris administration as out of touch for focusing on a menthol cigarette ban over other issues.

"Instead of solving the problems that matter to you, Kamala Harris and D.C. Democrats are coming after your menthol cigarettes," a narrator in a new digital ad says.

"We've got bigger problems to deal with, and so do Democrats," the ad continues, with headlines about the "border crisis" and the "fentanyl crisis" displayed on the screen.

While the Biden administration proposed the ban in 2021, it delayed its implementation earlier this year.

Black smokers are significantly more likely to use menthol cigarettes, according to government data, and the proposed ban has divided civil rights and health care groups.

The ads don’t make a specific political ask, as rules for nonprofit groups' advertising don't allow it. And it's unclear whether the message will work, as stakeholders on both sides disagree about the potential political impact of the proposed ban among Black voters specifically.

But Republicans see messaging like this as a potential way to blunt Harris' consolidation of her party's base, as she remains locked in a tight race against former President Donald Trump.

"Vice President Harris’ coronation completely reset this race because she was able to consolidate the Democrats' most important constituency — Black voters," Ryan Tyson, the head of the Tyson Group, wrote in a memo shared with NBC News by Building America's Future summarizing the group's recent polling.

"A way Republicans can combat Harris’ rise in the polls is to drive Blacks away from her," he continued. "Highlighting Harris’ support for a ban on menthol cigarettes could be the niche message that can get this done."

The Harris campaign did not provide a comment when asked whether she would seek to implement the ban if she won the White House.

In February, Building America's Future quietly launched a pilot program testing this message ahead of the South Carolina Democratic presidential primary, an uncompetitive contest featuring a large swath of Black Democratic voters. The messaging was broadly similar, but it was directed at Biden, then the party's clear front-runner for the nomination. The ads now feature Harris as a key villain.

The Biden administration announced its intent to ban menthol cigarettes in 2021, framing it as a potential game-changing policy to protect young and minority smokers by helping them quit or stopping them from smoking in the first place. The plan is backed by a broad coalition of public health groups, as well prominent Black officials like NAACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who have appeared in ads by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids touting the policy.

In an interview with NBC News, Johnson called the ads a "distraction" from an important effort.

"Tobacco use has been a serious health crisis in the African American community," he said. "The fact that every flavor has been banned, except the one flavor that research shows is more attractive to African Americans shows that the industry has created a discriminatory practice against the African American community."

Johnson dismissed the attack that the issue takes focus away from others, saying that political leaders can do "multiple things at the same time."

"There are no either-ors in this scenario," he said.

"We can ensure that people are treated with human dignity, and we can ensure that citizens from varying backgrounds and communities have better health outcomes, and not [have tobacco companies] be deceptive in their business practices or seek to distract in this current political environment," Johnson continued.

Tobacco companies have opposed the ban. So have some Black leaders, including attorney Benjamin Crump, who evoked the death of Eric Garner (who died in 2014 after a police officer put him in an apparent choke hold after he was accused of selling loose cigarettes) to warn against giving "police another reason to confront Black people" during a 2023 interview.

The polling conducted by Building for America found that Black voters want the administration to prioritize other issues over the menthol ban. Also, the poll found that while majorities of Black voters say they'd be more likely to vote for Harris if she backed the ban, a smaller percentage would be less likely to vote for her if she supported it (the poll did not specifically test whether those voters were on her side to begin with, or if they would change their vote).

But polling from February provided by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids found that highlighting Biden's support for the ban didn't affect his margin with Black voters on a head-to-head ballot test.

Yolonda C. Richardson, the president and CEO of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, told NBC News that their polling showed this new ad campaign was "based on a false premise."

As a political nonprofit group, there's not a robust public record associated with Building America’s Future. Tax filings show it's affiliated with a handful of prominent GOP consultants, including Generra Peck, who served as the campaign manager on Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign.

Unlike super PACs and other groups that expressly advocate for or against a candidate, Building America’s Future is not required to disclose its donors. An official with the group declined to comment when asked whether it would share any information about its donors, including whether tobacco companies or interests have given money to it.

The group has made other campaign expenditures in presidential battlegrounds this year, including an effort to criticize Harris over her border policies.