It’s a small buy, but it’s the first significant state advertising on behalf of Gary Johnson. | Getty Pro-Gary Johnson ads set to air

A new political action committee supporting Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party presidential nominee, is set to launch television ads this week in Maine — an emerging electoral battleground with a history of supporting third-party candidates.

The group that placed the reservations on Wednesday, America Deserves Better PAC, is set to spend at least $65,000 on the Maine airwaves, beginning on Friday and running through August 26.


The spot features clips of Johnson and his running mate, former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, touting their records and pitching their ticket as optimistic and hopeful, compared with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

"People are hungry to vote for someone, as opposed to the lesser of two evils," Johnson says in the one of the clips.

Little is known about America Deserves Better PAC. No filings for the committee exist on the Federal Election Commission’s website. The organization launched a website on Thursday, using its slogan as its web address: votefortheadults.com.

The committee’s treasurer, as listed on a contract filed by a TV station in Presque Isle, Maine, with the Federal Communications Commission, is Geoff Neale. According to the Libertarian Party’s website, Neale served two stints as national party chairman, from 2002-2004, and again from 2012-2014, during Johnson’s first presidential campaign under the party’s banner.

A press release on Johnson’s website trumpets an endorsement from Neale, who is quoted as saying, “I believe that Gary Johnson will be our best choice.”

Neale’s address on the contract is an Austin, Texas, post-office box. A phone number appearing on the contract belongs to an Austin-based consulting firm, KC Strategies, LLC.

A phone message left at the firm’s number for Neale wasn’t immediately returned.

It’s a small buy, but it’s the first significant state advertising on behalf of Johnson. According to NBC News, Johnson’s campaign has spent just $15,000 on television advertising so far.

Trump has moved to put Maine in play this fall. He appeared at an event in Portland last week, and Maine was one of the 17 states in which his campaign requested television advertising rates.

A Portland Press Herald poll in June, conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, found Clinton leading Trump in Maine by 7 points, 42 percent to 35 percent. But the poll didn’t include Johnson or Green Party nominee Jill Stein.

Maine awards two electoral votes to the statewide winner, and one electoral vote for the winner of each of the state’s congressional districts. The state’s expansive 2nd District, which encompasses central and northern Maine, is the more Republican of the two districts: President Barack Obama carried it by 9 points in 2012, a smaller margin than his 15-point statewide advantage.

Trump told the Portland Press Herald last week that he intends to compete for all four electoral votes from Maine, not just the 2nd District.

Maine has traditionally been a state where third-party candidates have had success. At the presidential level, third-party candidates have earned nearly 3.3 percent of votes in the past four elections — more than twice the national share of third-party votes (1.9 percent).

The state’s junior senator, Angus King, is an independent who caucuses with Democrats; King also served two terms as governor. Another independent candidate, Eliot Cutler, earned 36 percent of the vote in the 2010 governor’s race, but slipped to just 8 percent in 2014.

