A top outside group linked to Senate GOP leadership is planning a summer advertising blitz that highlights immigration and inflation in six battlegrounds that could decide control of the upper chamber next year.
One Nation, the nonprofit group aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), will drop $88 million through Labor Day in what it is billing as its “Stop the Insanity” campaign.
Of that amount, $70 million is new spending. The organization previously committed $18 million to Montana, running ads that focus on Sen. Jon Tester’s (D-MT) record on the southern border. The remainder gives fresh insight into which states Republicans view as their other top pickup opportunities in November.
Ohio, where the party hopes to unseat three-term incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown, will receive almost $29 million, while $18.6 million is being committed in Pennsylvania.
The campaign, which includes spending on radio, cable and broadcast TV, mail, and digital, will also invest in three second-tier states. Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nevada will receive a combined $23 million.
“President Joe Biden and liberals in Congress have enacted policies that are hurting our country and it’s time to tell them to stop the insanity,” Steven Law, the president and CEO of One Nation, said in a statement. “Americans are increasingly concerned about our porous Southern border and saving for the future because the cost of living is so high. There are solutions to these problems, but liberals in Washington, DC aren’t listening.”
The ad blitz is on top of tens of millions the Senate Leadership Fund, its affiliated super PAC, has reserved in Ohio and Montana for the fall. But Republicans will have to compete with a deluge of spending from their Democratic counterparts.
Already, Senate Democrats have announced plans for more than $300 million in advertising this cycle.
One Nation did not book spending in Arizona, a purple state where Republican firebrand Kari Lake is likely to face Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) in the fall, or Maryland, a blue stronghold in play because of former GOP Gov. Larry Hogan’s late entrance into the race. However, that could change in the coming months.
The focus on immigration comes as Democrats seek to reclaim the narrative on what has become a crisis at the southern border, chiefly by highlighting a failed border deal in the Senate that Republicans rejected in February.
Meanwhile, Tester has tacked to the right on the matter, last week becoming the lone Senate Democrat to co-sponsor the Laken Riley Act, which cracks down on crime committed by illegal immigrants.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The rate of inflation has steadily declined since President Joe Biden assumed office, but the matter continues to hobble Democrats down-ballot as consumers face higher prices on everything from groceries to gasoline.
The One Nation advertising will begin later this month in Ohio, with the Pennsylvania and Nevada spending starting in June. The ads reserved for Michigan and Wisconsin won’t begin until August.