Ad Roundup: Senate edition:
• CA-Sen: Labor-affiliated Standing Up for California's Middle Class puts down $1 million to tout Democrat Kamala Harris for her work as attorney general, particularly her efforts to keep children safe and her plans to invest in education.
• IN-Sen: The National Education Association continues a common Democratic line of attack that hammers Republican Todd Young for standing up for those who outsource jobs at the expense of Indiana workers.
• MO-Sen: Republican Sen. Roy Blunt speaks directly to the camera to blast Obamacare, attacking Democrat Jason Kander as a Hillary Clinton stooge who will expand the law.
• NC-Sen: The League of Conservation Voters spends $3 million to excoriate Republican Sen. Richard Burr for showering oil and gas companies with billions of tax breaks while they returned the favor with hundreds of thousands in campaign contributions. They note Burr even held tens of thousands of dollars in oil stocks even while voting for measures that could personally benefit him.
• NH-Sen: Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte monotonously attacks Democrat Maggie Hassan over Northern Pass, a high-power electricity transmission line that might mar the landscape of New Hampshire’s scenic foliage. Ayotte asserts she has always insisted the project could only move forward if they buried their power lines, but claims Hassan has equivocated on the issue. She further blasts Hassan for supposedly taking tens of thousands in illegal campaign contributions that she says are dirty money from special interests who “want to ram the project through and build the towers.”
Hassan’s campaign shot back that they have long prioritized the environment when considering this project, that Ayotte has major support from fossil fuel industry interests, and that environmental groups back Hassan. They counter that Hassan had to return $24,000 in campaign contributions on a technically, noting that even the state’s attorney general agreed with their interpretation of campaign finance law. The funds were issued before a crucial deadline, but Hassan’s 2014 gubernatorial campaign only physically received them after that deadline and had to return them. Time and again, Republicans have shown they can’t produce an attack ad against Hassan that doesn’t torture the truth.
• NV-Sen: The Senate Leadership Fund continues common Republican attacks against Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto for supposedly being weak on crime as state attorney general. Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions starts off by scaremongering about national security with images of Islamic extremists, then pivots to saying that’s why we need energy security. They praise Republican Joe Heck for pursuing an “all of the above” energy strategy that will supposedly promote American energy independence.
• PA-Sen: End Citizens United lays down $900,000 to excoriate Republican Sen. Pat Toomey for being a millionaire bank owner who used predatory foreclosure practices to unfairly squeeze vulnerable businessowners. They blast him for voting for rules that favor bankers like himself while sitting on the banking committee. The DSCC similarly skewers Toomey on the very same subject, noting his bank used predatory practices banned in most states, but Toomey fights for weaker banking regulations from his powerful perch on the banking committee. Meanwhile, the Republican Jewish Coalition attacks Democrat Katie McGinty over the Iran nuclear deal as part of $500,000 TV, mail, and canvassing effort.
• WI-Sen: Republican Sen. Ron Johnson has utterly no shame when he misleadingly attacks Democratic ex-Sen. Russ Feingold for being two-faced on protecting Social Security. Johnson, who has frequently called Social Security “A legal Ponzi scheme” and wanted to privatize it, claims Feingold wanted to increase taxes on benefits, saying it would hurt seniors. However, Feingold merely supports raising the yearly earnings limit of $118,500, where people pay no additional taxes into Social Security on any earnings above that level. You have to earn roughly four times the median income to make that much money, meaning ultra-wealthy people like Johnson pay a much lower overall rate in Social Security taxes than the other 94 percent of Americans, something Feingold wants to rectify.