Americans for Prosperity said Thursday that it was buying $4.5 million worth of ad time to pressure three red-state Democrats on tax reform.
The ads from the Koch-affiliated free-market group will target Sens. Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin. All three face re-election in 2018 in states that President Trump won, meaning that they could face political fallout for opposing the GOP tax reform push.
A representative for Americans for Prosperity, one of the outside groups most active in the tax reform effort, said the ad buy was the first in a wave.
The ads feature a narrator telling the audience that reform will prevent the powerful and well-connected from benefiting from a “rigged system” and that families “will have more to spend on what’s important to them.”
Donnelly, in particular, has faced pressure from Republicans to vote “yes” on an eventual tax reform bill. In the past two weeks, President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have traveled to Indiana with him to ask for his vote.
Pence is slated to speak at a retreat for the Koch network in New York City next week.
