The influential conservative group Club for Growth launched ads focusing on the 2024 race for Senate in several states on Fox News and digitally before, during and after Wednesday night’s 2024 GOP presidential debate in Milwaukee, a sign primary season is heating up.
The anti-tax group is airing ads in both Indiana and West Virginia. They released a new ad highlighting their support for Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) in Indiana’s 2024 U.S. Senate race that is airing in conjunction with the Fox News debate. The $13,000 ad buy will air on Fox News, digitally and across all Indiana TV markets on Wednesday and features former President Donald Trump and the Indiana Republican Party’s support of the state’s 3rd Congressional District representative.
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The ad features the congressman vowing to “shake things up” as part of the “next generation of conservative fighters.” The Indiana Republican Party announced at its annual dinner on Thursday evening that the state GOP had given the Republican National Committee approval to finance Banks’s run before the general election. The rare move, announced by state party Chairman Kyle Hupfer in a speech at the dinner, marks a shift from the group’s historic precedent of staying neutral in primaries.
Banks will face an opponent in the primary after John Rust, board chairman of Seymour egg producer Rose Acre Farms, announced his candidacy on Tuesday. The Club for Growth launched an advertising blitz against former Gov. Mitch Daniels earlier this year as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, tried to recruit him into the 2024 race. Daines and McConnell got behind Banks’s candidacy after Daniels opted against running. Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-SD) endorsed Banks in March.
The Club for Growth also released another ad, targeting Gov. Jim Justice (R-WV), after the conservative group endorsed Rep. Alex Mooney (R-WV) in the 2024 West Virginia Senate election. The ad will air before and during the Republican presidential debate on Fox News in West Virginia as part of a $9,000 ad buy.
“This is the definition of the swamp,” Justice says in the 30-second ad called “Deal,”
"Jim Justice, the establishment’s hand-picked candidate for Senate. Personally recruited by Mitch McConnell. Private texts, love letters, and swamp-stained campaign cash. Payback for the $100,000 Justice’s family gave to help McConnell? A down payment on Justice’s loyalty," the narrator said.
"Who knows what deals were cut, but we do know Justice is McConnell’s man, not West Virginia’s,” the ad concluded.
The video begins with Justice saying, "This is the definition of the swamp," followed by a narrator accusing Justice of being embroiled in the Washington "swamp."
"Jim Justice, the establishment’s hand-picked candidate for Senate. Personally recruited by Mitch McConnell. Private texts, love letters, and swamp-stained campaign cash. Payback for the $100,000 Justice’s family gave to help McConnell? A down payment on Justice’s loyalty," the narrator said.
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Justice is the front-runner in the Republican primary, as a popular governor in the state, but has come under scrutiny for his family's business and personal finances. Justice and Mooney are running to unseat Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) in the red-leaning state.
While the Club for Growth is launching ads, the NRSC confirmed they are not airing any television ads during the debate.