Rep. Kevin Cramer on Monday accelerated his attacks against Sen. Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota’s U.S. Senate race with a new television ad that takes aim at the Democrat’s biggest asset: her likability.
Cramer, Heitkamp’s Republican challenger in the midterm elections, is spending “six figures” on a statewide broadcast and cable television buy, plus a digital component. Ostensibly about Heitkamp’s record on veterans issues, the spot attempts to undercut the amiable, centrist image the first-term Democrat has tried to cut in a Republican-leaning state that voted overwhelmingly for Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016.
“I like Heidi. Who doesn’t like Heidi? But I don’t like the way she votes in Washington,” said retired Air Force Reserve Lt. Col. Patricia Traynor, one of about a half dozen veterans or active duty military sitting around a table at what appears to be a tavern. As the 30-second spot opens, a second veteran, this one a man, said: “Cramer has, time and time again, supported veterans hospitals.”
The Cramer campaign shared the ad first with the Washington Examiner.
Republican insiders have deemed the North Dakota contest the party’s top pickup opportunity in the Senate. Heitkamp, although generally aligned with her party on major legislation, has broken with Democratic leaders and worked with Trump on key reform bills and voted for some of the president’s high-profile judicial and executive branch nominees.
