Conservative group launches $10M campaign to support Trump's Supreme Court pick

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Trump taps Neil Gorsuch to fill Supreme Court vacancy

The president selects his nominee

The conservative group Judicial Crisis Network on Tuesday night launched a $10 million, multi-media ad campaign in support of President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee -- getting a jump on the looming Senate fight as progressive and liberal-leaning groups gear up to oppose Trump’s pick.

“This is the type of partisan politics the American people just rejected in November,” said JCN chief counsel Carrie Severino.

The group will begin by spending $2 million-plus on TV and online ads in Washington, D.C., and in Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota and Montana, states that Trump won by at least 19 percent.

JCN, started in 2005 to promote the judicial appointees of then-president George W. Bush, is also launching a website with information about nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch, along with pictures, videos and other related material.

The group’s efforts are part of larger and broader “center-right” campaign including roughly 50 other groups representing Second Amendment advocates, anti-abortion organizations and the Tea Party movement, said Severino, a former legal clerk for conservative Justice Clarence Thomas.

With Gorsuch, Trump is trying to fill the high court seat left open by conservative Justice Antoni Scalia’s death in February 2016.

Gorsuch is a federal appeals court judge from the Denver-based 10th Circuit.

Severino made clear Tuesday that the JCN’s effort will include targeting Senate Democrats determined to block any Trump Supreme Court nomination, particular those seeking reelection in 2018.

“Our campaign will be holding the Senate Democrats … accountable for their choice," she said in a written statement.

She said after Trump named Gorsuch that he is "exceptionally qualified -- a fair and independent judge who bases his decisions on the Constitution, and he is widely respected on both sides of the aisle.”

Meanwhile, People for the American Way and several other liberal-leaning groups are raising money and preparing campaigns against any Trump nominee and congressional Republicans who support the pick.

American Way is launching a media campaign that will include mobilizing activists, holding rallies, buying ads and “all of the components of campaign,” Marge Baker, the group’s executive vice president for policy and program, told Fox News on Tuesday night.

She also said the group is opposed to all of the roughly 20 nominees that Trump has considered because of their allegedly extreme views.

“We take this very, very seriously,” Baker said. “This is a lifetime appointment that affects all of the land, not just the rich and powerful.”

Other similar groups purportedly ready to oppose Trump nominations include the Alliance for Justice and Americans United for Change.

Beyond opposing any Trump nomination, such groups remain upset that Senate Republicans last year blocked President Obama’s high court nominee, Merrick Garland.