The super PAC supporting former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is launching a new ad campaign in Iowa this week, hoping to help the struggling 2008 Iowa caucus victor regain his support among the state’s evangelical Christian voters.
The ad, titled “Moral Clarity,” highlights Huckabee’s opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage, and his commitment to prayer. The group, Pursuing America’s Greatness, is backing the over $500,000 buy, including airing the spot during college football bowl games such as the Iowa Hawkeyes’ appearance in the Rose Bowl.
While still popular among religious voters in the state, Huckabee has struggled to rekindle the magic that propelled him to victory eight years ago. Instead, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has consolidated the evangelical vote, and is the insider favorite to place first in the caucuses.
The ad hopes to contrast Huckabee’s bona fides with Cruz’s comments to donors that same-sex marriage was not in his top-three most important issues.
“Mike Huckabee’s courageous, uncompromising commitment to preserve life and marriage are founded not on political opportunism, but on his abiding faith in God,” Nick Ryan, the president of Pursuing America’s Greatness, said in a statement. “These strategic ad buys will bring home to Iowa’s evangelicals, in a positive but unmistakable way, that Governor Huckabee is the true social conservative candidate they are looking for to carry their banner.”
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