Latest Line of Attack: Defining Trump’s ‘Soul’

To voters in New Hampshire, the video of Donald J. Trump seemingly mocking a reporter with a disability was well known by the time the Feb. 9 primary arrived. The “super PAC” backing Hillary Clinton is banking that it will be unfamiliar and off-putting to a general election audience in several swing states, and it is using the video in an ad called “Grace.”

THE MESSAGE The ad tells the story not through news reports, but through the eyes of a family with a disabled daughter. Pictures of Grace, a girl born with spina bifida, show her at birth and through childhood, smiling broadly in her wheelchair. As her parents, notably from Ohio, a major swing state, tell the story of her early life, the ad segues to video of Mr. Trump flailing his arms before cutting to a photo showing the reporter he was criticizing at the time, Serge Kovaleski of The New York Times, who has a condition that limits the functioning of his joints.

“When I saw Donald Trump mock someone with a disability, it showed me his soul,” Grace’s father says in the ad. “It showed me his heart. And I didn’t like what I saw.”

THE IMPACT The ad feels a little over-focus-grouped, as variations of the phrase “mocked a person with a disability” come four times in about 30 seconds. But the ad was also deemed highly effective when it was tested before various audiences.