The ad wars in Virginia’s 11th Congressional District race are heating up, and, with huge sums of money still in play, will likely continue through Nov. 2.
In the final pre-election campaign finance report, incumbent Democrat Gerry Connolly had about $875,000 cash on hand. His Republican challenger, Keith Fimian, reported just over $1 million to the Federal Election Commission.
Much of the cash is being spent to air television ads. Connolly’s campaign reported spending more than $500,000 on his ad campaign. Fimian spent $70,000.
The first television ads out from each campaign focused, for the most part, on portraying each candidate in a positive light, ticking off respective accomplishments of Connolly, formerly the chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, and Fimian, the founder and chairman of a home inspection company.
But subsequent ads from the two camps have gone straight for the jugular. The Connolly campaign is airing a new ad featuring a woman talking about Fimian’s abortion views, saying “he wants to put politicians and the government between a woman and her doctor.”
Meanwhile, one of Fimian’s spots features a narrator describing a “disturbing pattern” of Connolly’s voting record on spending and taxes interspersed with a clip showing him puffing on a cigar.
Despite the increasingly heavy spending on television airtime at the election nears, Connolly campaign manager James Walkinshaw maintains that it won’t be the deciding factor in the election.
“This campaign will be won door-to-door on the ground and we have a strong advantage there,” he said.
Tim Edson, Fimian’s campaign manager, acknowledged that spending on ad buys cannot be sustained as long in the Northern Virginia district as it can in the state’s less expensive media markets, but he said Fimian is raising enough money to be competitive. Fimian raised nearly three times as much cash as Connolly, $146,000 to $55,000, during the first two weeks of October, Edson said.
“We feel like we’re in a good place right now,” he said.
The campaigns are also getting help from outside groups. The conservative American Action Network recently spent nearly $1 million on an ad campaign targeting Connolly, including a spot that shows children struggling to carry backpacks that are purportedly weighted down by government spending.
Conversely, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is up on the airwaves with a new ad attacking Fimian’s business record, citing “thousands” in tax liens. Fimian said the 10-year-old tax problem was related to a “clerical error” and was settled long ago.
