Rep. Tammy Duckworth’s Senate campaign announced a fundraising boom on Wednesday, one day after a National Republican Senatorial Committee tweet criticized the double amputee for “not standing up for our veterans.”
The Illinois Democrat’s campaign announced that more than 1,000 supporters donated to her campaign in response to an email sent Tuesday afternoon to fundraise off the tweet.
“In the last day, more than one thousand supporters have chipped in to send Republicans a message that their shameful attacks aren’t working,” the Duckworth campaign announced.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee took down the tweet about 10 minutes after posting it, but neither the committee nor Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., have apologized to Duckworth, according to an email from her campaign.
“The problem isn’t just that Republicans used shameful language to attack a combat veteran who walks on prosthetic legs. It’s also that they’re continuing to disparage the commitment of someone who dedicated the past decade of her life to serving veterans in every way possible,” the campaign said.
Duckworth is an Iraq war veteran who lost both her legs during a helicopter crash. After her recovery, she worked at the Veterans Affairs Department before running for her seat in the House.
“It would be great if reporters would pay as much attention to a deleted tweet as they should to Tammy Duckworth being sued by VA whistleblowers for ignoring claims of mistreatment and corruption,” NRSC communications director Andrea Bozek said in a statement.
Duckworth allegedly did not take whistleblower reports of mistreatment and corruption seriously while she worked at the VA, according to an NBC Chicago report.
