The Human Rights Campaign announced Tuesday that Democratic heavyweight Guy Cecil will serve as chief strategist for his Votes for Equality PAC’s 2024 election efforts, managing a multimillion-dollar paid media budget to re-elect President Biden in November.
Cecil chaired the super PAC Priorities USA for eight years before stepping down last March. He led the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee as its executive director for the 2012 election cycle.
Cecil, who is gay, in a statement Tuesday warned against a second term for Donald Trump, which he said would devastate the LGBTQ community “and put all of our hard-won rights and freedoms at risk.”
“Between now and November, the Votes for Equality PAC will ensure that record numbers of Equality Voters understand the existential threat that Trump and MAGA politicians pose to our democracy and our very existence – and ensure they vote accordingly,” he said.
The former president has promised to enact at least a dozen policies aimed at members of the LGBTQ community if he is re-elected, including a national ban on transgender student-athletes competing according to their gender identity and a federal law that recognizes only two genders. He also promised to punish health care providers who administer gender-affirming medical care to minors and to roll back new protections for transgender students instituted by the Biden administration “on day one” of his presidency.
Trump, in a speech to voters last year, promised to restore the ban on transgender people serving in the military, a policy that was reversed by Biden in 2021.
Biden, who often calls his administration the most pro-LGBTQ in history, has expanded federal non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people and condemned violence and threats made against the community. In 2022, Biden signed legislation safeguarding marriage equality.
Biden’s re-election campaign in April launched Out for Biden-Harris, a national initiative to mobilize LGBTQ voters, which played a critical role in his 2020 victory over Trump. The campaign earlier this month said it planned to be present at more than 200 Pride events in 23 states, including each of the swing states that will decide the November elections.
The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group, invested millions in sending Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris back to the White House. The group launched a $15 million swing-state campaign in May aimed at mobilizing “equality voters,” who vote based on support for LGBTQ rights.
On Tuesday, HRC’s Equality Votes PAC released its first digital ad of the 2024 cycle, using Trump’s past statements on LGBTQ issues to demonstrate how a second Trump term threatens the community.
O one minute spotis the start of a seven-figure investment in digital advertising aimed at getting equality voters to the polls in November, HRC said Tuesday.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
