An outside group backing President Trump’s policies intends to move forward with an advertising campaign against Nevada Sen. Dean Heller, a Republican who announced his opposition to the GOP healthcare plan last week.
The group disputes a report suggesting they planned to hold off on the ads in the event Heller changed his position.
America First Policies, a group created after the election to promote Trump’s agenda, will pursue a seven-figure cable and digital ad buy in Nevada to highlight Heller’s stance on the healthcare bill this week regardless of whether he ultimately embraces the bill, according to two people familiar with the plan.
“We were always making multiple creative ads in the event that Heller changed his mind, but we’re not giving him a second chance,” Erin Montgomery, spokesman for America First Policies, told the Washington Examiner. “We are moving forward with ads regardless, we’re not waiting on him to change his mind. The content of the ad may fluctuate somewhat depending on him, but we’re still moving forward with the ads.”
“This was always our plan, was to have these ads go out today. There was no plan to hold back on it,” Montgomery added.
Heller is one of five Republican senators to come out against the Senate GOP healthcare plan since its release last week. Unlike the four other Republicans who expressed opposition to the bill, however, Heller objected that it does not spend enough on Medicaid, given that his state expanded the program under Obamacare. Sens. Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Rand Paul and Ron Johnson objected to the healthcare reform plan because they said it did not do enough to cut Obamacare regulations.
Heller is considered one of the most vulnerable Republican lawmakers in the Senate heading into the 2018 race.
America First Policies plans to run ads supporting the GOP healthcare plan in several other states, including Ohio. Senate Republican leaders intend to hold a vote on the bill later this week, before members leave Washington for the July 4th recess.
