Harris campaign ads aim to tie Trump to Project 2025, despite denials

By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Democrat Kamala Harris' presidential campaign on Wednesday will launch an ad campaign attempting to tie Republican former President Donald Trump to Project 2025, a set of conservative policy proposals that the project's participants hope Trump adopts if elected.

The Harris campaign said the first ad is being released in the run-up to Harris' scheduled Sept. 10 debate against Trump, to be broadcast by ABC.

Many of Trump's closest policy advisers were deeply involved in framing Project 2025, but he has tried to distance himself from it, saying some parts of it are "seriously extreme."

"I don't know anything about it," Trump said on July 20 at a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan. "I don't want to know anything about it."

The Harris campaign says the project is proof that Trump would adopt a series of authoritarian and hard-right policies if elected on Nov. 5.

The focus on Project 2025 will be part of a $370 million paid media campaign to run over the last two months of the campaign in several states where the election is likely to be decided.

Project 2025, detailed in a 900-page book, calls for a broad expansion in presidential power by boosting the number of political appointees and increasing the president's authority over the Justice Department.

It also advocates a sweeping elimination of environmental regulations and a crackdown on programs to boost diversity in the workplace, which the project argues are broadly illegal.

Harris' Project 2025 ad campaign begins this week on TV and digital across potentially decisive battleground states and in the Palm Beach-Fort Pierce media market in Florida, although Republicans are widely expected to win in Florida in November.

Trump's main residence is at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach.

Recent national polls have shown Harris building a small lead over Trump since she entered the race on July 21 following President Joe Biden's decision to end his reelection campaign. The Reuters/Ipsos poll from late July showed Harris up by 1 point, 43% to 42%.

(Reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Stephen Coates and Jonathan Oatis)