Hillary Clinton will soon be the first presidential candidate on the air in Georgia.
The Democratic candidate has made a "five-figure" ad buy on WSB-TV in Atlanta with a new military-themed spot called "Sacrifice," said a Clinton campaign official with knowledge of the buy who was not authorized to speak on the record.
WSB reporter Lori Geary said the ad is designed to "test the waters" to see whether Georgia truly is a battleground state. Polls have consistently shown Clinton and Trump in a tight race.
When the ad debuts, Clinton will become the first presidential candidate to air a general election ad in Georgia since then-U.S. Sen. Barack Obama made a last brief foray onto the state's airwaves in late October 2008.
The ad buy follows a six-figure cash infusion by the Clinton campaign into the Democratic Party of Georgia, as well as news that both the campaign and the Democratic National Committee have dispatched staff to the state to boost the party's efforts. Both Clinton and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump have Georgia campaign headquarters, and each has a few paid staff on the ground.
Clinton's 30-second ad features a series of veterans and families silently listening to Trump's proclamations that he knows "more about ISIS than the generals do" and that U.S. Sen. John McCain, a POW in Vietnam, is "not a war hero."
It also features Trump telling an interviewer that he has made "a lot of sacrifices" comparable those made by a family whose loved one died in battle.
Among those veterans featured on screen is Max Cleland, the former Georgia secretary of state and U.S. senator who lost three limbs in Vietnam.
"Donald Trump compares his business record to the sacrifices of the men and women who have dedicated their lives and lost loved ones in battle for their country," Rucker Culpepper, the director of Clinton's veterans and military families get-out-the-vote efforts, said in a statement. "From his attacks on Gold Star families to his insulting comments towards prisoners at war, Trump has been disrespecting our veterans and military for decades, proving he's unqualified and temperamentally unfit to be commander in chief. Our veterans deserve better."
Trump's campaign countered Tuesday by announcing that 88 retired U.S. generals and admirals endorsed the Republican's campaign. That group includes retired Air Force Brigadier Gen. Troy Tolbert of Georgia.
“Hillary Clinton has told the American people that she will continue President Obama’s failed foreign policy that has left our great nation weaker and our military neglected," Tolbert said in a statement. "Her deeply flawed decisions while serving as secretary of state, particularly regarding Libya, the wider Middle East and Russia, along with her inability to properly handle our nation’s most closely guarded secrets, prove she is unfit to be commander in chief."
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