Teachers union to launch ads in battleground states calling out Trump, Vance

One of the nation’s largest teachers unions is launching ads in battleground states to go after former President Trump and his GOP running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance.  

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) has prepared three ads, with spending in the mid-six figures, in Pennsylvania, Michigan and North Carolina.  

Two ads will run in Pennsylvania, one titled “Team Kid” where AFT President Randi Weingarten narrates the group’s goal of student success and past comments the Republican nominees have made about public education. 

“What’s wrong with these guys? We have to lift people up right now. We have to see the future in the eyes of every single one of our children. We all need us to be on Team Kid,” Weingarten said in a statement regarding the launch of the ads.

“Why would you do anything that undermines that? If you care about parents, if you care about kids, why would you do anything that undermines that connection between teachers and parents and the students?” she added.

The second ad, called “No Clue,” will be a 30-second radio ad with a father talking about gun violence in schools, false statements about immigrants from Trump and Vance and frustrations with the candidates’ divisive rhetoric.  

A 30-second digital ad will run within five miles of campaign stops Vance is making over the next 50 days, including in Michigan and North Carolina. The ad, titled “A Lesson for JD Vance,” had AFT members ridiculing the vice presidential nominee for comments he made about female teachers. 

The ads come after comments resurfaced from Vance back in 2021 about teachers who don’t have children. 

He specifically went after Weingarten, saying “If she wants to brainwash and destroy the mind of children, she should have some of her own and leave ours the hell alone.” 

Vance has already been having trouble courting women voters after 2021 comments resurfaced of him saying “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.” 

—Updated at 10:32 a.m.