An advocacy group founded to prevent future pandemics is launching a new round of TV ads Tuesday, urging key Democratic senators to support a $30 billion proposal designed to help prepare for coming viral outbreaks.
The ads from the group, Guarding Against Pandemics, come as lawmakers debate reducing funding for future pandemic preparedness as part of a larger multi-trillion-dollar spending package. The group argues in the ads that any such cuts would be a mistake after the catastrophe of the coronavirus pandemic.
“To prevent another 2020, Congress must act,” the ad says.
Guarding Against Pandemics will spend $150,000 on broadcast and cable TV ads aimed at seven Democratic senators across six states: Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Patty Murray of Washington, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, and Mark Warner and Tim Kaine of Virginia.
The ads referencing Warren, Murray and Hassan will praise them for supporting the pandemic spending, while the ads about Sinema, Manchin, Warner, Kaine and Luján will tell viewers to call the senators’ offices urging them to back the new funding.
Running ads in Manchin’s and Sinema’s home states may draw particular attention from some Democrats. The two centrist lawmakers have signaled resistance to the level of spending in the proposed $3.5 trillion budget bill, which includes the proposed funding for pandemic preparedness, and have had a fraught relationship with the party’s liberal wing.
Officials from Guarding Against Pandemics say the funding they favor can’t be among the cuts lawmakers enact.
“We cannot afford another deadly pandemic — and now is the time to invest in American-made vaccines, medical equipment, and technology that will prevent the next coronavirus. Voters need to know how vital $30 billion in pandemic preparedness funding can be for our economy, national security, and public health,” Gabe Bankman-Fried, the founder and director of Guarding Against Pandemics, said in a statement. “That’s why we’re proud to air this new campaign to ensure President Biden and Congress listen to American families and voters.”
Democrats are seeking to pass their budget bill on party-line votes in the narrowly divided U.S. House of Representatives and Senate.
Guarding Against Pandemics, a nonprofit organization that was founded last year, is funded in part by Sam Bankman-Fried, a billionaire who made his fortune in cryptocurrency. The group’s effort is an expansion of a previous ad campaign that focused on Washington, D.C.
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