We Aren't Waiting for 2028: Prologue, a $30 Million Digital Media Campaign to Define Our Opposition, Starts Today with Vance and Rubio
Today, Priorities USA Action launches Prologue, the first digital media program of the 2028 cycle. The $30M campaign will span ads, earned, and organic content to actually reach and persuade voters in the online places where our research shows their opinions are being shaped. Right now, the Republican establishment and conservative media are already quietly laying the groundwork for their next ticket. If we wait until 2028 to respond, we’ve already lost.
For the first time since 2012, Democrats will not be running against Donald Trump, and no one on the right is as defined as him. Although Vance and Rubio are the projected Republican frontrunners, their story isn’t written yet. We have an opportunity to shape voters’ views on them before they can rewrite their history. Prologue will do just that, tying Vance and Rubio to their unpopular actions in the Trump administration – in their own words and contradictions.
Rolling out today are Prologue’s first two ads and additional social content, targeting digital-first voters ages 18 to 44 across Rust Belt and Sun Belt swing states, built on exactly that research, and it’s already making headlines. Read the complete coverage from NOTUS here.
Vance and Rubio Aren’t Defined Yet — and Our Research Shows Where the Openings Are.
This campaign is backed by Priorities USA’s original public opinion research, which found that Vance and Rubio remain largely undefined, particularly among voters under 45.
At the outset of our research, 38% of voters under 45 could not rate Rubio positively or negatively; for Vance, that figure was 16%. To find out what shifts those numbers, we polled voters on messages drawn from both traditional opposition research and online signals, including YouTube comments and comedians’ takes on both figures. When testing the top themes for both men, voters specifically flagged Rubio’s past support for Medicare and Social Security cuts as his most concerning vulnerability, while Vance’s extreme stance on abortion and his aggressive defense of ICE were ranked as their primary concerns. The results were clear: after exposure to negative messaging, Rubio’s net favorability dropped 19 points among voters under 45 and Vance’s dropped 13.
These drops prove that perceptions around Vance and Rubio are highly moveable, which is exactly the opening Prologue was built to close.
Sourced From Their Own Records: The Reality Is Scarier Than Fiction
These first ads from Prologue take what voters actually find concerning about both Vance and Rubio and bring those findings to life through intentionally satirical ads that are native to the feed and built to stop the scroll. What we found is that voters don’t just respond to policy, but to the gap between what these men said and what they actually did.
Our message to voters isn’t complicated: Vance and Rubio have spent years claiming to stand with working-class voters, and then gutted the programs those same voters depend on. From DOGE to the One Big Beautiful Bill, Vance and Rubio have been Trump’s most loyal enablers — even as he profits off the presidency. The goal of Prologue is to ensure voters see their culpability in this. They didn’t stumble into these policies at the hands of Trump. They own them.
Take a peek at our first ads from this campaign:
Ad: Trickle Down with JD Vance
On the campaign trail in 2024, JD Vance promised “we are going to fight to lower grocery and housing prices for all of us.” By January 2025 he was saying prices would come down but “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” The Senate was 50-50 and Vance broke the tie to pass a bill cutting Medicaid and CHIP by more than $1 trillion, stripping coverage from more than 10 million Americans.
Ad: Little Marco Invasion Action Playset
Trump put Rubio in charge of the Iran war that has already cost taxpayers an estimated $132 billion. While Americans foot the bill in rising gas prices and groceries, Rubio goes on TV and recites the same rehearsed lines about strength and sacrifice he’s been delivering since his days in the Florida legislature. His decisions don’t stay in the situation room, they follow you to the gas station and grocery store.
The Voters We’re Losing Are Disproportionately Online — We Need to Meet Them Where They Are
The 2028 campaign trail doesn’t start at a town hall or on cable. It starts in someone’s living room at midnight, scrolling through their phone. It starts in a college dorm during a study break. It starts in a comment section, a group chat, or a YouTube rabbit hole.
Priorities’ research found that 42% of voters don’t pay attention to politics at all. But they are online: gaming, watching sports, scrolling. Someone is shaping their political views online, even if it’s not explicit.
Prologue will reach younger voters (those under 45), the “perpetually-online” but politically tuned-out, and voters consuming right-leaning media who are dissatisfied with Trump. The premise is simple: if we’re not in those feeds shaping what these voters think about Vance and Rubio, the Republican Party and conservative creators will be. They can’t go uncontested.
The Next Steps: Flipping the Script on 2028
The ads and social content launching today are only the first phase of a much larger effort. From here, we’re expanding into organic, including a Creator Corps that gives creators in our core states exclusive access to the research and a seat in our focus groups. The goal is a real-time loop between what we run as paid and what actually performs organically. We’re iterating, and staying in feeds until the algorithm latches on, not just putting our dollars behind something that tests well in a poll.
Don’t Just Watch the Fight! Join Us.
Building a digital-first operation that beats the GOP at their own game takes real resources. We’re raising the resources to fund this $30M effort in the lead up to 2028. We need your help. If you’d like to know more, follow up! This is the first post in a series.
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