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Americans for Prosperity Action, the super PAC arm of the conservative political network financed by billionaire Charles Koch and other megadonors, is planning to launch ads Monday supporting the likely GOP candidates in two key Senate races, Pennsylvania and Nevada.
AFP Action said it will be spending $1 million in Pennsylvania to support Republican candidate Dave McCormick and $600,000 in Nevada to boost GOP hopeful Sam Brown.
The ads featuring McCormick and Brown highlight their service as veterans and underscore their priorities, which include securing the border, fighting inflation and expanding American energy, the narrators say.
The ad featuring McCormick ends with the narrator calling him a “strong leader we can trust,” while the one featuring Brown ends with the narrator saying, “Sam Brown served you before, he will serve you again.”
Both Brown and McCormick lost GOP Senate primaries in 2022, but they are positioned to be the party nominees in their states this year, with support from the likes of Sen. Steve Daines, of Montana, chair of the Senate GOP campaign committee, and others.
Republicans need a net pickup of two Senate seats to flip the chamber, or one seat plus the tie-breaking vice presidency.
Ashley Klingensmith, AFP Action senior adviser for Pennsylvania, wrote in a statement that McCormick is ready “to be part of the solution by putting an end to Washington waste.”
McCormick will be facing three-term Democratic Sen. Bob Casey in the general election. Casey has a tough re-election campaign as Republicans look to Pennsylvania as they aim to regain the Senate majority.
In addition to the ad highlighting McCormick, AFP Action will release a second ad in Pennsylvania bashing Casey.
The ad starts by highlighting how long Casey has been in office and how much he has made. The narrator then says, “So what did we get in return? Sky high inflation, a $34 trillion national debt, a wide open southern border, radical anti-energy policies.”
Ronnie Najarro, AFP Action senior adviser for Nevada, attacked Brown’s potential Democratic opponent there, Sen. Jacky Rosen, in his own statement, calling Brown “the best candidate to defeat Jacky Rosen this November.”
In Nevada, AFP has already spent $135,000 on digital ads for Brown and has knocked on doors for several months.
This ad buy comes less than a week after AFP Action’s seven-figure ad buy in Montana and as the group focuses on down-ballot races in 2024 after failing to dislodge former President Donald Trump in the GOP presidential race.
AFP endorsed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley for president but said Sunday that it will stop spending money supporting her campaign. This comes a day after Haley lost the presidential primary in her home state of South Carolina to Trump.
In an email obtained by NBC News, which was confirmed by two sources who received it, senior adviser Emily Seidel wrote, “we don’t believe any outside group can make a material difference to widen her path to victory. “
The subject line of the email was “3 ways to win,” referring to AFP Actions’ three-pronged approach to 2024, including the presidential primary, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House.
“This election will be decided by swing voters. And Joe Biden leads Donald Trump 2 to 1 amongst independents,” Seidel wrote in the email under the section about the Senate and the House. “The most important — and hardest — thing we may need to do is convince millions of voters who will never cast a ballot for Donald Trump to vote for Republican candidates for Senate and House who will advance our shared principles. AFP Action has done this before and we are confident we can do it again.”
