Bevin highlights McConnell debt-limit vote in new ad

Sen. McConnell’s (R-Ky.) primary challenger, Matt Bevin, released a new ad on Monday hitting McConnell for supporting a clean debt limit increase earlier this month, a vote that’s drawn him heavy fire from conservatives.

{mosads}The 15-second spot is the third in a series of short ads focused on red-meat conservative issues backed by small media buys that the campaign has run over the past week. Bevin also hit McConnell on guns and earmarks last week.

“Mitch McConnell betrayed conservatives to give Obama a blank check,” an announcer says in the new ad, as on-screen text reads: “McConnell worked with Obama to raise the debt ceiling.” “Matt Bevin opposes raising the national debt. Period.”
 
Bevin raised eyebrows last week when he released the two issue-focused ads but didn’t focus the debt limit vote, which political analysts in Kentucky and Washington see as perhaps the most damaging he’s had to take during the campaign thus far.

The Senate Minority Leader immediately came under fire from conservatives, with the Senate Conservatives Fund, a national conservative group that’s backing Bevin in the primary, tweeting their discontent with the senator.

“Mitch McConnell just voted with the Democrats to advance yet another debt limit increase. Kentucky deserves better,” the group tweeted.

Polling has shown McConnell leading Bevin by consistent double-digit margins, but the challenge has drawn time and resources from the senator that his allies say he’d rather spend focusing on his expected Democratic opponent, Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes.