Priorities USA Action, a super PAC supporting President Barack Obama, released an ad Wednesday using secret footage of GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney dismissing nearly half the country as unwinnable because they are "dependent on government" and feel "entitled to health care, to food, to housing."
The ad will air on television and online in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin, and is part of a broader $30 million effort by the group to target middle class voters.
The group is the first to use footage from a video released on Monday of Romney speaking at a private fundraiser, unaware that he was being recorded. In that video, Romney is heard telling a group of donors that Obama has support from 47 percent of the country -- referring to those who pay no income taxes -- "who are dependent on government, who believe that, that they are victims, who believe that government has the responsibility to care for them."
Romney did not deny making those statements, but said later on Monday that his point was "not elegantly stated."
Priorities USA uses his words in the ad to argue he doesn't understand middle-class struggle, pointing to his tax plan.
"Victims? Behind these doors middle-class families struggle," a narrator says in the ad. "And Romney will make things even tougher."
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