GOP group runs ads outside RNC featuring former Trump supporters now voting against him

12 July 2024

Former President Donald Trump will be getting a loud, unfriendly welcome to Milwaukee, Wisconsin for the Republican National Convention (RNC) next week, thanks to billboards from an anti-Trump Republican group.

The New Republic reported Friday that the group Republican Voters Against Trump has rented massive billboards in and around Milwaukee's Fiserv Forum, where the RNC will kick off on July 15. The ads feature quotes from Republican voters who all previously voted for the 45th president of the United States either in 2016 or 2020, who are opposed to his 2024 candidacy.

Text on the billboards shows the voter's first name and the state they're from (at least two billboards will feature Wisconsin voters), their status as a former supporter of the 45th president of the United States, and their vow to not vote for him in November.

"I always thought a businessman could shake up the good ol’ boy system. I wasn’t thrilled about him, but I thought he was a successful businessman," former Trump voter and military veteran Scott Moore told the Tennessee Lookout. He then said he regretted that decision because "I saw that what he was doing was about him and not about our country."

This isn't the first time the former president has been tailed by a mobile billboard during a major visit. Last month, when Trump made his first visit to Washington, D.C. since the January 6, 2021 insurrection to meet with Republican lawmakers, the Democratic National Committee hired a mobile billboard to follow Trump's motorcade around the nation's capital touting his role in stoking the deadly siege of the U.S. Capitol.

In addition to the billboards, Trump is likely to be greeted by throngs of protesters when he arrives in the Badger State's largest city. The Milwaukee Police Department is expecting thousands of protesters to converge downtown, and has been busy erecting barricades to form a protective barrier around the Fiserv Forum.

“Mayor Cavalier Johnson has said the protesters want to be on the stage at Fiserv Forum, and the Republicans want the protesters to be on the moon,” City of Milwaukee communications director Jeff Fleming told NBC News. “What we’re trying to do is strike a balance that gives people a full opportunity to express First Amendment speech, to exercise their rights, and at the same time conform with the security concerns that exist.”

Protesters may not just convince of Democrats and opponents of the ex-president, but of angry Milwaukee residents upset with how Trump described their city. While Trump was in D.C., he told Republicans that Milwaukee was a "horrible city," which prompted the city's mayor to warn him that trashing a must-win battleground state's largest population center could cost him Wisconsin'e electoral college votes.

The RNC will take place July 15-18, and Trump is poised to become the first convicted felon to accept the presidential nomination from one of the United States' two major political parties.

Click here to read the New Republic's report in full.

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