ICYMI: GOP attacks its own [Axios]

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Axios: GOP attacks its own
By Lachlan Markay
September 23, 2021

Key Points: 

• Republican super PACs are beating up on the party’s own candidates in key Senate primaries.

• The negative ads some Republican groups are directing at GOP candidates threaten to elevate damaging stories about them ahead of competitive fights that could determine control of the 50-50 Senate.

• The risk isn’t just the quantity or volume of Republican-on-Republican attacks; it’s their brutal tone.

• Jobs for Our Future PAC, which supports Pennsylvania Republican Senate candidate Jeff Bartos, has spent $166,000 going after Republican rival Sean Parnell.

• It recently began airing a 60-second ad focused on protection from abuse orders obtained against Parnell by his estranged wife and “sexist rhetoric” from his media appearances.

• In North Carolina, the Club for Growth has spent $120,000 attacking Senate candidate and former governor Pat McCrory, with ads accusing him of steering subsidies to “a company owned by the Chinese Communist Party.”

• Saving Arizona, a super PAC backing Senate candidate Blake Masters, has spent over $225,000 accusing Republican rival Mark Brnovich of being insufficiently supportive of former President Donald Trump.

• Republican-aligned independent political spenders have dropped more than half a million dollars hitting rival Republican Senate candidates this year, according to an Axios review of Federal Election Commission records.

• “Outside organizations are going to do what they can to best support their candidate,” Doug Heye, a veteran Republican operative, said during an interview. “That can have a weakening effect for whoever emerges going into the general election.”

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