A new slate of U.S. Senate advertisements made their way to the airwaves Tuesday and Wednesday, with a pair of attacks targeting Democratic U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin on immigration and inflation while another pair of ads back her and attack her Republican opponent, Mike Rogers.
The latest attack ads are running statewide against Slotkin (D-Holly) and are from the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Both focus on Slotkin’s vote in March 2021 for a coronavirus pandemic relief package, which passed in March 2021.
Slotkin is tied to Vice President Kamala Harris in the first ad on immigration, featuring Livingston County Sheriff Mike Murphy.
“Harris and Slotkin have opened our borders to illegals and then they reward them with taxpayer funded benefits,” Murphy says. “These liberal policies are a threat to families and taxpayers.”
You can watch the video by clicking here.
In the second NRSC ad, Vanessa, a mother from Webberville, attacks Slotkin for her vote on the stimulus package. The ad references a 2021 Business Insider story of President Joe Biden’s administration spending money on housing migrants as part of its efforts to address a spike in crossings at the southern border.
“My family has had to cut back. Higher prices are costing us thousands more every year,” the mother in the ad says. “We can’t afford Elissa Slotkin and her handouts to illegal immigrants.”
An attack ad against Rogers from WinSenate, affiliated with the Senate Democrats’ Senate Majority PAC, began airing this week in the Detroit media market.
In the ad, Dan, a plumber from Flushing, hits Rogers on supporting a proposal in 2005 that would have made significant changes to Social Security, including partial privatization. It never came up for a vote after strong backlash.
“If Mike Rogers got his way, I would lose my guaranteed benefits while his Wall Street donors would make a fortune,” Dan says. “I earned by Social Security. It’s not right for Mike Rogers to take it away.”
On Tuesday, a new ad from Protect Progress began airing statewide in support of Slotkin.
“Country first: a credo Elissa Slotkin lives by,” the narrator states before citing her background in the CIA and votes on legislation intended to lower prescription drug prices and beef up the state’s manufacturing sector.
In the 7th U.S. House District, Democrat Curtis Hertel Jr. of East Lansing released a new ad calling his Republican opponent, Tom Barrett of Charlotte, “dangerous.”
“Tom Barrett voted for a law that gives drug companies near absolute immunity, a law that existed only in Michigan, so when their drugs harmed or killed people, we were the only ones in the nation who couldn’t fight back,” the ad says. “No wonder big pharma allies spent over 4 million to elect Barrett.”
Hertel and Barrett’s contest has already become the most expensive U.S. House race in the state for advertisement spending and reservations, and Hertel himself leads all other U.S. House candidates nationwide in ad spending or reservations.
However, data reported to AdImpact on Wednesday showed the Congressional Leadership Fund, a PAC tied to U.S. House Republicans, substantially increasing its commitment to the race.
It added $2.2 million in new spending and ad reservations, nearly cutting in half what had been a $5 million Democratic advantage in spending and reservations.
