The fight to replace retiring GOP Sen. Pat Toomey heated up Tuesday after a super PAC backing Rep. Conor Lamb aired the first negative TV ad of Pennsylvania’s Democratic primary, calling the lawmaker’s chief rival a socialist.
The 30-second clip contrasts Lamb, a centrist Democrat, with the race’s current front-runner, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, portraying him as an out-of-touch leftist who would jeopardize the party’s razor-thin majority in the Senate.
“Republicans think they’d crush socialist Fetterman. With all that’s at stake, Fetterman’s a risk we can’t afford,” a voiceover says as the ad flashes scenes of the Jan. 6 riot.
Penn Progress released the ad the same day Fetterman announced a $3.1 million fundraising haul for the first quarter of 2022. The Lamb campaign has yet to share its first-quarter numbers, with filings not due to the Federal Election Commission until April 15, but he was trailing far behind Fetterman at the end of 2021.
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The lieutenant governor slammed the political action committee’s “stone-cold lies,” taking issue with the ad calling him a “self-described democratic socialist.” Fetterman’s campaign has previously denied he ever called himself a socialist.
“[These] ads aren’t just demonstrably false, they’re desperate, and frankly sad,” Joe Calvello, spokesman for the campaign, said in a statement. “Conor hasn’t been able to gain ground with Democrats, so he’s decided to run like a Republican and use Fox News talking points to attack a fellow Democrat.”
Calvello later claimed the ad had been pulled from WPVI in Philadelphia following complaints from the campaign.
Penn Progress hopes to spend $8 million on TV ads and other media in the race, even enlisting the help of political strategist James Carville to attract Democratic donors. Lamb has some ground to make up before the May 17 primary; he trailed Fetterman by 23 points in an Emerson/The Hill poll conducted in late March.
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The Republican contest is far tighter, with TV personality Dr. Mehmet Oz and former hedge fund CEO David McCormick garnering 14% support each in the same Emerson poll. The two candidates are vying for the endorsement of former President Donald Trump, who teased on Tuesday that he’d announce a decision “maybe fairly soon.”
More than half of voters are undecided in the Republican race, compared to 37% in the Democratic primary.
