The Democratic super-PAC Patriot Majority is launching ads in North Carolina and Arkansas accusing Senate Republican candidates of not standing up for their states.
{mosads}One ad attacks Rep. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) for voting against the farm bill and supporting an increase in the minimum age for Medicare and Social Security. The other hits North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis (R) for opposing the more popular parts of ObamaCare, like the ban on denying coverage for preexisting conditions.
Both states are top Senate battlegrounds, and have seen heavy spending against vulnerable Sens. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and Kay Hagan (D-N.C.). Americans for Prosperity, the conservative group backed by the Koch brothers, Charles and David Koch, has been on the air regularly in both states — spending nearly $8 million in North Carolina alone — and Democrats are looking to push back.
“In North Carolina we put families first, but Senate candidate Thom Tillis sides with health insurance companies. He’d let them deny coverage for preexisting conditions and raise rates for women needing mammograms. Tillis supports a plan that would end Medicare as we know it and force seniors to spent up to $1700 more on prescriptions. He’s with the special interests, hurting North Carolina families,” says the North Carolina ad.
“We’re Arkansas. In tough times we stand together. But not Congressman Tom Cotton. Democrats and Republicans passed the Farm Bill, but Cotton was the only Arkansan in Congress to oppose it. And even though seniors have earned it after a lifetime of hard work, Cotton was the only one who’d deny Medicare and Social Security to Arkansas seniors until they’re 70. Congressman Cotton is just not for us,” says the Arkansas ad.
Hagan and Pryor are two top GOP targets, and public polls show both are in dangerous territory for their reelections, tied with or trailing their Republican foes.