Republicans are dropping millions of dollars to hit Senate Democrats on inflation just as the chamber takes up President Joe Biden’s sweeping social spending bill.
One Nation, a GOP group, is launching roughly $4.3 million in new ads aimed at a trio of incumbent Democratic senators: Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Mark Kelly of Arizona and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, according to a person familiar with the effort. The three ads, which begin airing on Friday, declare inflation is “killing us” and direct viewers to lean on the senators to oppose the forthcoming $1.7 trillion legislation.
Republicans are making a big bet that the bill Democrats dubbed “Build Back Better” will represent a political loser for the handful of vulnerable Democrats who will determine the Senate majority next year. With inflation approaching the highest levels in 40 years, the GOP is working to link high prices with Democrats’ climate, education and child care-focused proposal that will raise taxes on the wealthy and also decrease drug prices.
“Congressional liberals are pushing more reckless spending that will make inflation worse. We are calling on Congress to hit the brakes,” said Steven Law, president of One Nation. “We'll hold accountable those who put partisan agendas before what is best for their constituents."
The new ad spending amounts to $1.9 million in Arizona, $1.1 million in New Hampshire and $1.2 million in Nevada. Those states, along with Georgia, are Republicans’ best pick-up opportunities in next year’s Senate races, while Democrats are eyeing GOP-held seats in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In a 50-50 Senate, just one Democratic loss next year could throw the majority to GOP Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The latest spend from One Nation — which is affiliated with the Senate Leadership Fund, a group with ties to McConnell — builds on a $5 million tranche of ads in October. And it isn’t alone in the field. Democratic groups like the League of Conservation Voters, Majority Forward and Building Back Together are also running ads to defend vulnerable Democrats as the bill moves forward.
The new GOP campaign demonstrates the volatility of the political landscape as Majority Leader Chuck Schumer presses to pass the legislation before Christmas. As senators deliberate on how to change the House-passed plan and, ultimately, whether to approve another gargantuan spending bill, the airwaves back home will be flooded with GOP attacks and Democratic cover.
Democrats say they agree inflation is a problem and have leaned on Biden to decrease gas prices. When it comes to rising prices, Cortez Masto said “people are feeling it” in Nevada, and Kelly said inflation overall is a “big concern.” But both senators argued that the spending bill will actually reverse the tide of rising prices, not accelerate them.
“A lot of stuff in the legislation is to lower costs for families. So, it’s essentially the opposite. We’re trying to address costs,” Kelly said in an interview.
Increasingly, the GOP's political strategy focuses squarely on tying inflation to Biden and his allies in Congress, since higher prices directly impact voters nationwide. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a former chair of the upper-chamber GOP’s campaign arm, called the bill an “albatross” saddling Democrats’ prospects of keeping the majority.
Voters “understand that throwing a bunch more money into the system is going to continue to aggravate inflation. And that’s a killer,” Cornyn said.
Given the outsize attention to higher costs, Democrats are aggressively parrying the GOP’s attempts to deter them from voting for the bill. The Building Back Together group has spent $25 million since the summer in House and Senate battlegrounds and is currently running a nearly $2.5 million campaign in Nevada, New Hampshire, Arizona and Washington, D.C., arguing Biden’s plan lowers costs for families.
Groups in Arizona are aiding Kelly. And Majority Forward is running $800,000 of ads in both New Hampshire and Nevada, with the latter touting Cortez Masto’s work on lowering health care costs.
“It’s disappointing that the Republicans don’t want to do everything they can to lower health care costs for so many people in this country, including in my state,” Cortez Masto said in an interview. “That’s what the Build Back Better bill is about: It’s about lowering costs.”
Democrats do not currently believe Cortez Masto, Hassan, Kelly or Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) are considering a vote against the bill, though some of them are seeking changes to the House’s version. Instead, most of the focus in the caucus is on Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), whom Cornyn said are “doing their party a huge favor by slowing this thing down and perhaps even preventing some of their vulnerable senators up in 2022 from having to vote on it.”
“It is absolutely going to increase inflation,” said Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, a member of GOP leadership, of the domestic spending bill. “This is a huge vulnerability.”
Democrats and the president have leaned on a letter from 17 Nobel laureates that argues Biden’s next spending bill “will ease longer-term inflationary pressures.” What’s more, White House officials argued this week that higher wages are helping blunt the price pressures that families are facing at the gas station, grocery and department store.
And though Republicans are near-certain that the connection between Senate Democrats’ votes for Biden’s climate and social spending bill and inflation will be the biggest issue next year, the election is more than 10 months away. Democrats from Senate battlegrounds say that if anything, their big spending agenda will help them at the ballot box — not cost them.
“The important thing is for people to see some positive improvement in their lives,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), who just won reelection and is close to Hassan. Asked if the bill will increase inflation as Republicans contend, she replied: “No. Because it’s paid for. It’s just an effort to scare people.”
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By: Burgess Everett
Title: GOP escalates air wars over Biden's megabill
Sourced From: www.politico.com/news/2021/12/10/gop-escalates-air-wars-bidens-megabill-524045
Published Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2021 04:31:45 EST
