March 1, 2024 Press Releases

DSCC FRIDAY TAKEAWAYS: “THE IVF RECEIPTS” ARE OUT, REPUBLICANS’ MESS IN MICHIGAN & KARI LAKE’S PLAN FOR “THE END OF DEMOCRACY”

🧾 “THE IVF RECEIPTS” → In the wake of the Alabama Supreme Court ruling, new reporting points out that “the list of GOP Senate candidates who have taken the position that life begins at conception is long—and Democrats plan to remind voters frequently about the similarities between that position and the language used in the Alabama IVF opinion.” And reporting across Senate battlegrounds detailed Republican candidates’ toxic, dangerous positions. See some of the facts:

IN ARIZONA: the Daily Beast reported Kari Lake said she believes “life begins at conception” during her failed 2022 run for Governor.
IN FLORIDA: Debbie Mucarsel-Powell slammed Rick Scott for refusing to protect IVF in the Senate, highlighting Scott’s record saying “[he] firmly believe[s] that life begins at conception” and “abortion kills human children.”

IN MICHIGAN: The Gander reported Mike Rogers “lobbied for a nationwide abortion ban and repeatedly introduced federal legislation that would’ve restricted access to reproductive health care—including four bills that would’ve made IVF treatment illegal nationwide,” and Daily Beast reported Peter Meijer said “I am 100% pro-life and will defend Life from conception to natural death.”
IN MONTANA: The Montana Dems called out Tim Sheehy for standing with his campaign bankrollers and political benefactors by refusing to back nationwide federal protections for IVF access.
IN NEVADA: A new op-ed in the Reno Gazette Journal details Sam Brown’s “extreme, anti-abortion record,” noting that “if he ever gets a vote in the Senate, Sam Brown would side with Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell and anti-abortion extremists over the will of Nevadans every time.”

IN OHIO: Daily Beast reported Bernie Moreno said “conservative Republicans should never back down from their belief that life begins at conception.” In a recent WXVU column, Howard Wilkinson detailed that all three “all three [of Ohio’s GOP primary contenders] opposed Issue 1 last fall,” which protects the right “to ‘make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions, including, but not limited to’ decisions about abortion, contraception, miscarriage care, and fertility treatment.”

IN WISCONSIN: Daily Beast reported Eric Hovde “described his abortion position…as protecting ‘all human life from conception to natural death.’” Democratic leaders throughout the state “called out” Hovde for his “track record of opposing abortion rights.”

🗞️ WHAT’S BLACK AND WHITE AND RED ALL OVER?? → In case you missed it, after Senate Republicans blocked the Democratic bill to enshrine protections for in-vitro fertilization into federal law, wall-to-wall coverage highlighted how Senate Republicans’ actions once again show they are unwilling to protect women’s right to make their own personal decisions about their health care and families. See more.

🐎 TEXAS HOLD ‘EM (ACCOUNTABLE) → New reporting from NBC News highlights how Texas Democrats “believe abortion will be a salient issue…in Texas’ 2024 Senate race” against “uniquely vulnerable” Ted Cruz, who “won re-election by just 3 percentage points in 2018.” The story highlights Texas’ “near-total ban on the procedure [which] took effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.” The ban has “sparked real fears among Texas women and Texans more broadly,” and Cruz “will pay a price in November.”

💥🤺AND ANOTHER ONE → Michigan Republicans’ “already crowded” and “brutal intraparty battle” became even more contentious when Justin Amash jumped in the race this week. Amash came out swinging in his attempt to “block” fellow GOP primary candidate Mike Rogers “from becoming the party’s Senate nominee,” whacking Rogers for having the “worst voting record you could have in a Republican primary in 2024” and calling him “an easy candidate to defeat.” Amash and Rogers have a long, contentious history: they “repeatedly clashed” in Congress, and “Rogers even raised money for Amash primary opponent Brian Ellis in 2014.”

🚨“MAGA PLOTS A SENATE TAKEOVER” → Sen. Mitch McConnell’s announcement that he will step down as Senate Republicans’ leader just raised the stakes for every 2024 Senate race now that Senate Republicans’ “MAGA” “hard-liners” are “plot[ting] a Senate takeover.”

📣 DSCC COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR DAVID BERGSTEIN said “led by Senator McConnell, Senate Republicans have opposed Americans’ most important priorities and values – and his successor will lead Senate Republicans to embrace an even more dangerous agenda. A national ban on abortion, the overturn of the Affordable Care Act, an end to Medicare and Social Security, and greater attacks on our rights and freedoms are the consequences if this next generation of MAGA Republicans gain control of the Senate. In 2024, voters will stand against this threat of a radicalized Republican Senate by defending Democrats’ Senate majority.”
☀️ FLORIDA DEM DEBBIE MUCARSEL-POWELL said Mitch McConnell’s retirement makes Rick Scott “more powerful — and more dangerous” after Scott “signal[ed] interest in [the] Senate leader race to succeed McConnell.” Mucarsel-Powell added that “the stakes of this race just got so much higher…now the Florida Senate race will not only decide if we (Democrats) keep the Senate majority, but who the leader of that majority will be.”

🪦 SILVER DOLLAR’S DEAD → New reporting from Rolling Stone details that “GOP Senate candidate [Eric Hovde] waged [a] decades long campaign to kill a beloved dive bar” in Madison. And now that “Eric Hovde’s Hovde Properties finally acquired Madison’s Silver Dollar Tavern…it plans to tear [Silver Dollar Tavern] down.”

🔔 THE LATEST FROM LAKE →

💸 SHADY SCANDAL: A new report from Daily Beast reveals that “Kari Lake’s bribery scandal involves a shady GOP tech firm” Superfeed, a company whose business license has been revoked, that public records yield almost no trace of, and whose “secrecy raises a number of questions, like who exactly is profiting from Superfeed, who is running the company, and to what extent has it insinuated itself in Republican politics.”

🇺🇸🚨“THE END OF DEMOCRACY” → Kari Lake’s plan for the US Senate is “the end of democracy,” according to a new report by the Copper Courier detailing Lake’s activities at CPAC last weekend. Lake’s attendance is under scrutiny after reports showed “Nazis mingle[d] openly at CPAC, spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories and finding allies,” and Lake spoke with “far-right media figure Jack Posobiec,” who “called for the end of American democracy” at the conference.
🦅🪶 BIRDS OF A FEATHER → New reporting details that Kari Lake is once again fundraising with “someone who has promoted the QAnon and other fringe conspiracy theories online theorists…for the second time in a month.” The controversial fundraisers are the “latest example of Lake […] undermining the notion that she’s distancing herself from sources of potential controversy to appease national Republicans.”

💵 SHADY SHEEHY → New reporting revealed that Tim Sheehy’s campaign has cashed more than $100,000 in lobbyist checks in 2023 – including significant contributions from pharmaceutical company lobbyists and Chinese tech companies. The report notes that Sheehy’s “tough on China” claims are also under fire, as he accepted $10,000 from lobbyists for two Chinese tech companies.

⚠️💰BERNIE BUSTED…AGAIN → Bernie Moreno continues to face local scrutiny over his record of wage theft as “numerous reports that put his business dealings…in question” continue to surface. In addition to the attacks Moreno is facing over his record of refusing to pay his employees the overtime they earned and shredding evidence he was legally required to keep to get out of it, Moreno repeatedly said he “doesn’t believe there should be a minimum wage” at all.

👥 SELF-SERVING SENATORS→ Once again, Senators Cruz and Scott pushed our country towards a devastating government shutdown that would disrupt the services the people of their state rely on when they voted against a bipartisan plan to avoid a government shutdown. Looks like voters in Texas and Florida just got another reason to fire them in November.

IN THE STATES