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Liberal groups get together on an anti-Trump strategy

Supporters look on as democratic presidential candidate former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks during a Get Out the Vote event at Grady Cole Center on March 14, 2016, in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Supporters look on as democratic presidential candidate former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks during a Get Out the Vote event at Grady Cole Center on March 14, 2016, in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Supporters look on as democratic presidential candidate former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks during a Get Out the Vote event at Grady Cole Center on March 14, 2016, in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Liberal groups, including Bernie Sanders supporters, are planning to turn their collective fire -- and cash -- on the leading contender to be the Republican nominee, Donald Trump.

The Wall Street Journal reports that a coalition of 22 liberal groups, including some that backed Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary, are already coordinating an anti-Donald Trump strategy:

A coalition of 22 liberal groups including some that have endorsed Mrs. Clinton and others that back her Democratic rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders have united behind a campaign to stop Mr. Trump.

Among their plans: anti-Trump demonstrations, possibly including protests at the Republican National Convention this summer in Cleveland, and marches in major cities.

“So far, Trump has bounced around the country speaking to people in these stadium rallies, and we haven’t seen massive marches outside the rallies,” said Ben Wikler, Washington director for Moveon.org, which is leading the coalition and backs Mr. Sanders.

The groups together plan to spend tens of millions of dollars against Trump, both in traditional negative advertising and on marches and other public events. Several Super PACs, working on Clinton’s behalf, have purportedly amassed dossiers of opposition research on Trump that they have declined to use thus far, for fear that it would weaken the candidate and elevate another Republican who would give Clinton a tougher general election challenge.

They also plan to recruit organizations representing the Muslim, Hispanic, and LGBTQ communities to help highlight Trump’s past bigoted statements.

They will be taking the dirty work of insulting the Republican nominee away from Clinton’s campaign, which is reportedly planning to stick to substantive issues after watching Trump’s Republican rivals all hurt themselves by attempting to attack Trump, according to the Journal.

A previous version of this post contained passages that were not properly credited to a source. It’s been updated to correct the error.

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