US allies of Harris launch ads featuring Ukraine

An advertising campaign praising Vice President Kamala Harris's experience with Ukraine and criticising former President Donald Trump's approach to Russia is being launched in key US states that traditionally play a decisive role in presidential elections.

As reported by Politico, the advertising campaign is launched by America's Future Majority Fund, an organisation that supports Democratic candidates. The campaign targets Americans of Eastern European descent. It is expected to include television and digital advertising in Pennsylvania, followed by two more important states, Michigan and Wisconsin. 

During Tuesday's presidential debate, Harris spoke directly to the "800,000 Polish Americans right here in Pennsylvania", claiming that Poland would be Russia's next target after Ukraine. "If Donald Trump were president, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv right now," Harris claimed.

The Democrats appear to be taking a new approach – tying their campaign in key states to communities for whom the war in Ukraine has a greater personal resonance. They are trying to convince them that Trump will abandon Ukraine and allies on NATO's eastern flank.

There are currently no public polls that focus on groups of Central and Eastern European Americans and whether the war in Ukraine is a driving factor in their voting decisions, and whether they prefer Harris's or Trump's approach.

A new poll conducted by CATO Institute and YouGov, a global public opinion and data company, found that in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, voters in small majorities believe Trump is more likely to resolve the war in Ukraine and keep the US out of foreign wars.

More than 700,000 people in Pennsylvania, or about 5% of the state's population, are of Polish descent, and about 122,000 are of Ukrainian descent. Michigan is home to about 900,000 Polish Americans and 40,000 Americans of Ukrainian descent, and Wisconsin has about 480,000 Polish Americans. 

Biden won Trump over in 2020 in Pennsylvania by 80,000 votes, Michigan by 154,000 votes, and Wisconsin by 20,000 votes.

During the debate, Trump dodged the question of whether he wanted Ukraine to win the war, repeating only that he "wants the war to stop" and claiming that the real human cost of the war was estimated at millions.