Dem group releases new ad targeting Missouri GOP Senate candidate

The Senate Majority PAC, the top outside group aligned with Senate Democratic leadership, is out with a new ad accusing Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley of looking the other way when a campaign donor was faced with an ethics complaint. 

The group is also putting an additional $800,000 of television spending into the state to coincide with the new spot, bringing its total investment to $6 million as it looks to protect Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.). 

The new ad focuses on Hawley’s relationship with David Humphreys, a prominent Missouri businessman and GOP donor who gave millions to Hawley’s campaign for attorney general.

{mosads}Humphries was slapped with a class-action lawsuit by customers of his shingle company last year. The Kansas City Star reported last year that Humphreys donated $100,000 to a state lawmaker who days earlier sponsored a bill that would change the law on class-action suits. 

Despite criticism from Democrats, the issue didn’t move forward. Hawley said last year that his office lacked jurisdiction to investigate and he told the Star in August that his office received no evidence in the case, and that nothing “would suggest any wrongdoing.”

“Josh Hawley promised to clean up corruption in Jefferson City, but time after time he has shown that he is part of the problem,” Chris Hayden, a spokesperson for SMP, said in a statement corresponding with the ad. 

Democrats have focused their attacks on Hawley’s record on public corruption. During Hawley’s August interview with the Star, he panned that criticism as “absurd” and said his office will hunt down those who “abuse the public trust.”

McCaskill faces a tough fight to hold her seat in Missouri, a state won by Trump.

Republicans are also investing in Missouri. The Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC aligned with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), announced it was reserving $10.5 million in advertising dollars in the state to boost Hawley.