Democrats will target Donald Trumpâs first full-scale campaign rally since his criminal trial with a billboard that brands him âa convicted white-collar crookâ.
The ad, paid for by the Democratic National Committee (DNC), is the latest indication that the party is ready to become more aggressive in capitalising on last monthâs guilty verdict in New York.
âTrump was a disaster for Nevadaâs economy,â says the billboard, which will be displayed in Las Vegas, where Trump is due to speak on Sunday. âNow heâs back. A convicted white-collar crook. Coddling billionaires, leaving workers behind.â
A Manhattan jury found Trump guilty of all 34 counts of falsifying business records in his hush-money criminal trial, making him the the first former US president to be convicted of a felony. Judge Juan Merchan set a sentencing hearing for 11 July.
But Democrats have been unsure how far to go in hammering home the verdict to voters in this yearâs presidential election campaign. Some fear it could fuel a narrative that the trial was politically motivated and backfire by generating sympathy for the presumptive Republican nominee.
However, this week there have been signs of a more direct approach. On Monday, at a campaign reception in Greenwich, Connecticut, Joe Biden referred to his opponent as a âconvicted felonâ.
The Las Vegas billboard attempts to tie Trumpâs criminal record to his economic one, portraying him as a âwhite-collar crookâ who ripped off Nevadaâs working class when he was president. The phrase also has echoes of the âCrooked Hillaryâ label that proved effective for Trump during the 2016 campaign.
Stephanie Justice, a DNC spokesperson, said: âAs Donald Trump returns to Nevada this weekend for the first time as a convicted felon, voters will remember this crook left Nevadaâs workers out to dry as president.
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âAfter promising to take care of Nevadaâs middle class, he implemented a tax scam that made the ultra-wealthy and corporations wealthier off the backs of working families, repeatedly attacked unions and sat back as Nevada bled tens of thousands of jobs.â
Justice added: âNow heâs promising tax handouts to his billionaire donors instead of putting the interests of working Nevadans first. Nevada voters know that Trump is too corrupt and unfit to serve, and will reject him again in 2024.â
The political impact of Trumpâs conviction remains uncertain, but a post-verdict analysis of nearly 2,000 interviews with voters who previously participated in New York Times/Siena College surveys found that Trumpâs lead over Biden narrowed from three points to just one point.
