Ben and Jerry cut TV ads for 5 Dem hopefuls who exemplify company’s ‘values’: report

The founders of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream company are reportedly launching TV ads for five Democrats running for House seats who they say exemplify the ice cream company’s values.

The ads for Aftab Pureval in Ohio, Stephany Rose Spaulding in Colorado, J.D. Scholten in Iowa, James Thompson in Kansas and Lauren Underwood in Illinois will start running on MSNBC, CNN and Comedy Central on Monday, according to NBC News.

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield appear briefly on camera to praise the candidates and talk about the importance of the election, it added.

{mosads}Cohen told NBC News that the goal of the campaign, which is being launched in partnership with the progressive organization MoveOn.org, is to “bring national spotlight and national name recognition” to candidates that exemplify “Ben & Jerry’s values of compassion, economic justice social justice.”

“We are lending what we can, which happens to be ice cream, to highlight their races and hopefully send the message to people around the country that if you want to support someone in this upcoming election, these are some really good candidates to support,” he explained. 

All five candidates are in tough races.

Underwood is the only one whose race that FiveThirtyEight has declared a toss-up.

Pureval and Scholten’s districts are “likely” to go red, while Thompson and Spaulding are campaigning in “solid R” districts. 

Cohen and Greenfield had earlier endorsed the five candidates with limited-edition ice cream flavors.

Cohen said two of those candidates — Ammar Campa-Najjar (Calif.) and Jess King (Pa.) — did not get ads because they could not get the funding for an “efficient” purchase in their districts. Campa-Najjar is campaigning in the San Diego media market and part of the Los Angeles market while King is running in the area around Harrisburg, Pa.

Both King and Campa-Najjar are in districts that are “likely” to go Republican, according to FiveThirtyEight.