Planned Parenthood’s campaign arm is launching its first attack of the 2016 Senate races with $400,000 worth of TV ads against Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.)
{mosads}Planned Parenthood Votes is hitting the vulnerable Republican with a 30-second spot blasting her attempts in the Senate to tighten access to abortion and defund women’s health centers. Her refusal to consider President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee is also highlighted.
“Kelly Ayotte may try to paint herself as pro-woman, but her record tells a very different story,” Deirdre Schifeling, executive director of the super-PAC, wrote in a statement.
Ayotte holds one of the Senate’s most at-risk seats in 2016. She is facing Gov. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), a challenger who has been backed by several abortion rights groups.
The ad’s focus on the Senate leadership’s refusal to hold hearings for Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland is the latest sign that the vacancy will become a major issue in the many tight Senate races this fall.
Planned Parenthood has seized on the vacancy and blasts Ayotte’s decision to ignore the nominee as part of an effort to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.
The ad shows Ayotte arguing in August 2010 that Roe v. Wade should be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, and the narrator warns: “For New Hampshire women, the consequences of letting Kelly Ayotte play politics with the Constitution could last a lifetime.”
Planned Parenthood is planning to spend big in 2016, a year in which it backed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in its first-ever presidential endorsement.
The super-PAC, Planned Parenthood Votes, has raised about $4.5 million so far, with just $1.3 million spent, according to the most recent campaign finance reports, last filed in February.