Kelly Loeffler defies conventional wisdom by highlighting wealth in bid to hold Senate seat

Meanwhile, some of the Senate’s wealthiest members have gone out of their way to avoid appearances of flaunting their wealth. Mitt Romney, elected a Utah Republican senator in 2018 after being his party’s 2012 presidential nominee, has for years been spotted in tight coach-class seats — despite a fortune of more than $100 million seeded by his days in the private equity business in Massachusetts.

Sen. Kelly Loeffler is taking a different approach. The Georgia Republican, appointed to an open seat in January and now facing her first election in November, is the Senate’s wealthiest member, with an estimated fortune of $500 million. And she has launched a $4 million ad campaign that, among other things, highlights her private jet, which was used “to bring stranded Georgians home safe” during the coronavirus pandemic.

“Senator Loeffler left a successful career in the private sector to serve Georgians in the U.S. Senate,” said the Loeffler campaign’s communications director, Stephen Lawson, in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “She’s been laser-focused on delivering relief to Georgia families and businesses impacted by COVID-19, and as we begin to reopen our economy, she will use her experience in the business world to help reignite our economy and get Georgians back to work.”

Earlier this month, Loeffler helped return several Georgians who had been stuck on a cruise ship docked off the coast of Florida back to their homes because coronavirus travel restrictions kept them stranded.

Whether using her private plane to help constituents adversely affected by COVID-19 will help her politically is an open question. In Georgia’s all-party November primary, Loeffler is being challenged by Rep. Doug Collins, the top House Judiciary Committee Republican who got lots of national exposure over the winter as a vocal ally of President Trump during the impeachment saga. Recent public polls have shown Collins far ahead of Loeffler.

The private plane/coronavirus move comes amid reports that Loeffler and her husband, Jeffrey Sprecher, sold millions of dollars worth of stocks before the market crashed in response to the pandemic.

“Given that the sources of some of Loeffler’s wealth have generated a lot of critical press coverage over the past couple of months, seeming to highlight that wealth struck many as an odd strategy,” said University of Virginia Center for Politics analyst Kyle Kondik.

In Missouri two years ago, McCaskill’s private plane use (for campaign travel, not moving stranded constituents) hurt her in an ultimately losing bid to Republican challenger Josh Hawley.

“There’s a strong populist strain in the electorate, especially in the slice of swing voters Democrats must dominate in order to win here, given the past decade’s Republican trend,” Jeff Smith, a former Democratic state senator in Missouri.

“With this key group, yes, Republican attacks on Claire’s wealth, most of them falsely insinuating that it was somehow ill-gotten through her position, did indeed hurt her in 2018,” Smith told the Washington Examiner.

Loeffler, meanwhile, is forging ahead with her campaign to hold the seat, which Democratic strategists feel they have an outside chance of nabbing in the fall.

Loeffler has already loaned her campaign $10 million and has called attacks on her trading scandals as part of the Left’s “socialist” message.