There is a battle going on to swing House votes on Obamacare repeal while lawmakers are at home for their two-week recess.
The dueling ads from outside political groups are intended to magnify the pressure members of Congress are facing from their constituents at town hall meetings. The feedback could help determine whether congressional leaders and the White House try to bring a new healthcare bill to the floor after the House reconvenes on April 25.
So far centrist Republicans, many of them in competitive districts, are bearing the brunt of the persuasion onslaught.
The conservative Club for Growth hit the airwaves in two districts Monday, targeting Reps. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., and Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill. The group known for backing challengers to Republicans it considers insufficiently conservative will ultimately spend $1 million in 10 districts on this buy.
A new coalition of liberal advocacy groups called Save My Care will spend “seven figures” to hit seven Republicans who either supported the plan or were not vocally opposed with a spot that criticizes the failed American Health Care Act.
Save My Care is on the air in the districts of Reps. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., Carlos Curbelo, R-Fla., Darrell Issa, R-Calif., Tom MacArthur, R-N.J., Brian Mast, R-Fla., Martha McSally, R-Ariz. and David Valadao, R-Calif.
Another liberal group, Bridge Project, launched a digital campaign Monday with a spot called “Trumpcare 2.0: Another disaster.” Their GOP targets are: Indiana’s Luke Messer and Todd Rokita; Pennsylvania’s Lou Barletta, Mike Kelly and Tom Marino; Missouri’s Ann Wagner, Virginia’s Barbara Comstock and Texan Will Hurd.
Their intended audience is “Trump voters who feel Donald Trump is compromising his populist promises from the campaign,” the organization told Axios.
MoveOn.org is trying to help Democrat John Ossoff pick up the Georgia seat vacated by Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price on April 18. The progressive group is spending six figures with television and digital spots supporting Ossoff by criticizing Republicans’ Obamacare repeal plan.
Only the National Republican Congressional Committee is hitting Democrats so far.
The unspecified digital and mobile billboard buy will ultimately hit five Democrats on the NRCC’s target list of seats it hopes to flip for supporting “Obamacare at the expense of their constituents,” according to the NRCC.
The House GOP’s campaign arm went up Monday against New Jersey’s Josh Gottheimer.
The NRCC will reveal the other four members this week one day at a time.
“Democrats are doubling down on the failure of Obamacare and are now pushing a top-down single payer healthcare plan,” NRCC spokesman Matt Gorman charged.
“These targets have time and time again touted their support for Obamacare and disregarded the calls of their constituents for needed change on the failed law,” he stated. “Their voters deserve to know these Democrats are responsible for their burdens of increasing premiums, lower healthcare options, and less access to needed care.”
The competing ad campaigns will continue at least until Congress returns to Washington later this month.
