Democrats to fly pro-Harris messages over NFL games

The Democratic National Committee plans to fly pro-Kamala Harris banners or write messages in the sky in support of the party’s presidential nominee over four NFL games on Sunday, marking the first time this cycle Democrats have advertised aerially at professional football games.

The timing is fortuitous: Teams from six battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — happen to be scheduled to play each other Sunday. The DNC hopes to seize on the amassed swing-state audience by flying banners over the following games: the Arizona Cardinals at the Green Bay Packers, the Atlanta Falcons at the Carolina Panthers, and the Cleveland Browns at the Philadelphia Eagles.

In addition, the DNC plans to skywrite “Vote Kamala” over the Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Las Vegas Raiders game at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.

The banners will read “Sack Trump’s Project 2025! Vote Kamala!” — a reference to an aggressive right-wing agenda touted by former president Donald Trump’s allies and written by several of his onetime administration members and appointees. Project 2025 calls for, among other things, dismantling the Education Department, passing sweeping tax cuts, imposing sharp limits on abortion, giving the White House greater influence over the Justice Department and reducing efforts to limit climate change and increasing promotion of fossil fuels.

Trump has said he disavows Project 2025 and tried to distance himself from it, but Democrats and Harris’s campaign have warned that a second Trump term would look much like what is outlined in the right-wing blueprint.

“That’s why the DNC is meeting voters where they are, with innovative skywriting and plane banners that have a simple message: the most important contest is still to come in November, and America is ready to sack Trump’s Project 2025 agenda, win the game, and cast their vote for Kamala Harris,” DNC spokesman Abhi Rahman said in a statement.

Americans consistently name football as their favorite sport, according to a Gallup poll earlier this year. Forty-one percent of adults say it is their favorite sport to watch. Baseball and basketball essentially tied for second at 10 percent and 9 percent. Gallup said football has been the top sport in its survey since 1972.

It won’t be the first time the DNC has taken to the skies to try to get its message across. On Wednesday, one day before Trump was scheduled to visit Detroit, the DNC flew a banner calling Trump an “anti-union scab” over the Detroit Tigers home playoff game.

Last month, the DNC flew banners over some professional baseball games that read, “Don’t strike out w/Trump! Go to bat 4 Harris!”

In August 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic, Trump’s campaign trolled then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden with pro-Trump messaging in the sky over Wilmington, Del.

Azi Paybarah contributed to this report.