The ads are being funded by a Democratic activist who gained a following after the election when he launched a Change.org petition urging the Electoral College to pick Hillary Clinton instead of Donald Trump. | AP Photo Full-page ads turn up the heat on Trump electors A pro-Clinton activist is running newspaper ads in Philadelphia, Austin, Salt Lake City and Tampa Bay.

An anti-Trump activist has begun running full-page ads in newspapers across the country to persuade Electoral College members to “vote their conscience” as part of a pressure campaign intended to block the election of Donald Trump.

The ads, which appeared Wednesday morning in the Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, Austin American-Statesman, Salt Lake City Tribune and Tampa Bay Times, are also slated to appear in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Wisconsin State Journal on Thursday. The 538 members of the Electoral College are slated to meet Monday in their respective state capitals. The ads target Republican electors in states won by Trump.


“Never in our Republic’s history has there been a President-apparent comparable to Donald Trump,” the ad reads. “His inauguration would present a grave and continual threat to the Constitution, to domestic tranquility and to international stability.”

The ads are being funded by Daniel Brezenoff, a social worker and grassroots Democratic activist who gained a following after the election when he launched a Change.org petition urging the Electoral College to pick Hillary Clinton instead of Trump. The petition went viral and is approaching 5 million signatures, the largest in Change.org’s history. He leveraged that list to raise about $250,000 through a GoFundMe page to support the ads. He said the newspaper campaign has exhausted virtually all of the funds raised.

Brezenoff told POLITICO he still supports his initial goal to convince the Electoral College to support Clinton, but he says he understands that other activists are working toward electing an alternative Republican to Trump. He said the ads focused on a shared goal: to convince electors to exercise their own judgment before voting.

The full-page ad includes a link to a page of signers that includes Brezenoff and two Democratic electors working to elect a moderate Republican alternative to Trump – Colorado’s Micheal Baca and Washington state’s P. Bret Chiafalo. A third elector, Washington’s Beth Caldwell, has also signed. A slew of academics with expertise in history, law and the constitution signed the letter. Former New York City Mayor David Dinkins is among the signatories as well.

Brezenoff said the ad campaign is designed to reach electors but also raise public pressure on them in states with large Democratic populations or widespread anti-Trump sentiment. The Washington Post was included, he said, because backers wanted to include a national outlet and decided the nation’s capital was an appropriate venue to spread the message.