The charge is being led by the industry’s leading trade group, the Washington-based American Beverage Association, which has retained several powerhouse political consultants for the cause, including the strategists responsible for the “Harry and Louise” television advertisements that helped defeat President Bill Clinton’s health care plan in the 1990s.

The beverage association would not disclose its budget for the New York campaign, but Eliot Hoff, a spokesman for the coalition, said it was “prepared to utilize whatever resources are necessary.”

The city has also waged a campaign to influence public opinion. Since 2009 it has run five waves of advertising, in subways, in print, on the Internet and on television, linking soda consumption to obesity. The campaign has cost $2.8 million, city officials said, of which 87 percent was financed by the federal government.

The battle is a consequential one for the soda industry, which is on the defensive as public health officials increasingly cite sweetened beverages as a major contributor to America’s runaway obesity rate. The industry has already committed tens of millions of dollars to help defeat proposed taxes and regulations on its products across the country — including $13 million in Albany in 2010 to successfully lobby the Legislature to reject a proposed 1-cent-an-ounce state tax on sodas.

But the industry has been facing even more challenges since May 30 when Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg proposed banning the sale of sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces in regulated food establishments, including in movie theaters and sports arenas. The mayor of Cambridge, Mass., Henrietta Davis, has proposed that her city take a similar step, and Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat, proposed a federal study of the link between sugary beverages and obesity.