A pro-life activist running a third-party presidential campaign is hoping to cause Americans to refrain from voting for Democrats in the 2024 election by showing them ads he believes will prove to them that the party is a “fortress of evil that must be destroyed.”
Randall Terry is the Constitution Party’s nominee for president in the 2024 presidential election. Terry, a pro-life activist who founded the pro-life organization Operation Rescue that was established to organize blockades of abortion clinics, is running a campaign for the purpose of raising awareness about abortion by airing ads featuring graphic pictures from the procedure and urging Americans not to support President Joe Biden and the Democrats.
The campaign cites the overarching message behind the ads as to “Defend Children, Defeat Biden, and Destroy the Democratic Party.” So far, his campaign has produced nine ads.
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About half of the ads feature Stephen Broden, the Constitution Party’s vice presidential nominee and the founder of the National Black Pro-Life Coalition who serves as senior pastor of Fair Park Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas. The campaign intends to produce nearly 20 more.
Terry elaborated on his campaign in an interview with The Christian Post: “Right now, we are producing the ads and showing them to people to raise money. The window where we can compel the stations to run the ads begins on September 5 so the [Federal Communications Commission] law requires that a TV station take the ad of a federal candidate who is on the ballot 60 days prior to the election.”
Terry told CP that his campaign was in the process of “mapping out the strategy” as to where the ads will air and that the final strategy will depend on “how much money we raise.” He indicated that he intends to have one of the ads, titled “Stupid Celebrities,” air on national television during “The View.”
The ad, which contains pictures of outspoken celebrities who have expressed support for liberal causes including “The View” cohost Whoopi Goldberg, features Terry declaring in a voice-over “I am so sick of stupid celebrities” who “embarrass themselves.” He delivered a message to them as pictures of unborn and newborn babies appeared on screen: “Hey morons, this is a human being.”
“These are dead human beings,” Terry declared as the ad transitioned into showing the remains of babies “murdered by abortion.” He asked the “fools” pictured in the ad to “shut up and follow the science” before urging “those who still have brains” to “send Biden the baby-killer packing.”
“At the end of the day, once pro-lifers recognize the power of these ads to defeat Biden and destroy the Democrat Party, that’s when they start giving us money,” Terry predicted. “The Democrat Party is a fortress of evil that must be destroyed.”
Terry explained that “My mission in the presence of God … our mission as a campaign is to blow a hole in the side of the Democrat Party and cause it to sink.”
While Terry has raised about $200,000 so far, he hopes to raise between $5 and $6 million and is looking into starting a Super PAC. Although Terry’s primary goal is to affect the outcome of the presidential race, he also hopes to have an impact on several abortion-related referendums slated to go before voters this fall that could have the effect of establishing constitutional rights to abortion in their states.
Terry indicated that he plans to run ads against the proposal to establish a constitutional right to abortion in Florida communicating the message that “if you vote for this constitutional amendment, you have blood on your hands.”
Terry shared his belief that the pro-life movement “missed their opportunity” to defeat efforts to establish constitutional rights to abortion that passed in several states by not engaging in similar messaging. “The most powerful weapon we have are the images of aborted children,” he stated. “The second most powerful weapon we have is saying that abortion is murder. Can you imagine fighting anti-Semitism without using the pictures of the Holocaust? Think about it.”
“That is their best weapon is to show these horrifying images of these poor victims and say ‘never again,’” he remarked. Terry noted that one of the ads featured Broden detailing how “America saw 100 years of the [Ku Klux Klan] lynching black men.” Broden maintained that “Now, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party are killing for the KKK” as pictures of the remains of aborted babies appeared on screen.
“Lynching black babies by abortion in their mother’s womb, they’ve convinced black women that the answer to unintended pregnancy is to murder their babies,” Broden lamented. “Black people must repent of voting for these child killers.”
Terry contended that this kind of messaging is necessary to influence public opinion on abortion: “Think about the firestorm that’s going to create, a black man on national television saying ‘if you vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris … they are doing the work of the Ku Klux Klan, lynching black babies in the womb.’ No one has ever done this.”
Additionally, Terry addressed concerns that his campaign would take away votes from former President Donald Trump, the most pro-life candidate among the two major party presidential hopefuls: “That’s not our mission. And if you look at the ads, it’s clearly going after Biden and the Democrat Party. By destroying the Democrat Party and defeating Biden, we help Trump.”
“I don’t want Republican votes. I want their money,” he insisted. Terry cited former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, as one member of the political right who is embracing his strategy.
After viewing the ads, which do not mention Trump, tell people not to vote for him or ask people to support Terry, DeLay concluded that “every Republican should be giving you money” in a conversation with the pro-life activist. Terry remained confident that once Republican voters and those concerned about him spoiling the election for Trump see his ads, they will go “Oh, I get it.”
“We are begging pro-life Christians to fund this campaign. We will show America the truth in a way that has never happened before,” he vowed. “We believe that America will not end abortion until America sees abortion.”
When asked about the possibility of conservatives unhappy with Trump due to concerns stemming from his support for COVID-19 lockdowns and/or his statements suggesting that the federal government should not work to set abortion policy, Terry responded by stressing that “Our ads are targeted at Catholic Democrats and Catholic African Americans.” Terry identified both groups as key constituencies in the Democrat Party before discussing his strategy in detail.
“The largest voting bloc in the Democrat Party are Roman Catholics. The second largest voting bloc are African Americans. So we are tailoring our ads to Catholics and black Americans to say ‘if you vote for these candidates, you are voting for people who are at war with your family and at war with your faith.’”
Terry expressed confidence that “if we can cause 5%, just 5% of Catholics and blacks to leave the Democrat Party, the Democrat Party will capsize, it will go under, it will sink.” Referring to other major American political parties that have gone extinct over the years, he forecasted that “It will go the way of the Whig Party and the Southern Democrat Party.”
“For the handful of dissatisfied pro-lifers who vote for us, they will be a small percentage compared to the Catholic Democrats and Catholic … black Americans that we will reach and cause to switch their vote,” he predicted. He expressed concern that “over half of Catholics vote for a Democrat every single time and the majority of those Catholics say that they’re pro-life,” identifying the ads as an effort to “hold them accountable to their faith” by causing them to refrain from voting for Biden.
Terry outlined how his efforts have worked in the past on a much smaller scale. The pro-life activist sought the Democrat nomination in 2012, when then-President Barack Obama was seeking renomination. While Terry did not gain traction on a national scale, he received “18% of the vote showing [similar] ads” in Oklahoma.
“Eighteen percent of the vote in a closed primary. That’s the power of these ads. I carried 13 counties, I beat a sitting president in 13 counties in Oklahoma running these ads. I earned delegates at the Democrat Convention, which they took away, but these ads are so powerful that when Democrats see them, it strikes their conscience and they realize they can’t vote for a child killer. Eighteen percent of the vote I carried in a statewide election, in a closed primary.”
According to Terry, “A closed primary means you can’t switch. It wasn’t independents, it wasn’t Republicans who said ‘oh I’m going to vote just to … screw around.’ No, it’s a closed primary. You have to be a registered Democrat to vote in that primary and I carried 18% of the vote showing aborted baby ads.”
Terry informed CP that he would have run for president in both 2016 and 2020 but two of his sons suffered from severe illnesses during that time period, causing him to sit out the elections.
As of June 2024, the Constitution Party has ballot access in 12 states worth a combined 110 electoral votes: Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Nevada, Oregon, South Carolina, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming. While the Constitution Party currently has limited ballot access, Terry predicted a much larger presence for his party on presidential ballots across the U.S. based on recent history.
“If you look at the history of the Constitution Party, it has always had between 22 and 30 states. Some of the states, it has perpetual ballot access. Some of the states, they have to get it every four years by signature gathering.”
Terry listed New Jersey, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Missouri, North Carolina and Tennessee as additional states where he expected to be on the ballot.
In the past two presidential elections, the Constitution Party has had a negligible impact on the final results. In 2016, the party received just 0.15% of the vote. It captured only 0.04% of the vote in 2020. Terry hopes this year will be different, describing his “dream come true” as the Constitution Party providing “the margin of defeat for Joe Biden because they showed television ads of the victims of abortion.”
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
