Dem super-PAC ad pushes back against Koch brothers

Democrats’ main Senate super-PAC is launching a major ad buy in Michigan to attack Republican Senate candidate Terri Lynn Land (R).

{mosads}The Senate Majority PAC ad comes as a response to a slew of heavy advertising from Americans for Prosperity, a heavy-spending conservative group backed by the Koch brothers, and accuses Land of being beholden to the wealthy brothers.

“The special interests are falsely attacking Gary Peters to buy a Senate seat for National Republican Committeewoman Terri Lynn Land because Land will give the wealthy and powerful tax breaks paid for by middle-class families — by restricting women’s access to healthcare, by ending Medicare as we know it,” the ad’s narrator says as images of the Koch brothers and Land flash across the screen. “Terri Lynn Land: Helping the powerful at our expense.”

Americans for Prosperity has already spent nearly $2 million in the slightly Democratic-leaning state attacking Rep. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Democrats’ likely nominee. Polls suggest the attacks are working: Land, a former RNC committeewoman and Michigan secretary of state, has held narrow leads in most recent public polling, though Peters has the edge in a poll released Wednesday by a Democratic firm.

A Senate Majority PAC spokesman said the ads were designed to push back against AFP’s ads hitting Peters on ObamaCare. A recent AFP ad in the state features a Michigan cancer patient saying ObamaCare cost her healthcare plan, though fact-checkers have questioned whether the ad’s charges add up.

“Terri Lynn Land is advancing this very reckless and irresponsible agenda and we want people to know that,” said the spokesman. “They’re trying to buy a seat. We’re going to highlight that you’ve got AFP spending millions of dollars to get the agenda they want, and they wouldn’t be doing so if they didn’t think the candidate would enact that agenda.”

Land’s campaign fired back.

“Harry Reid to the rescue! Big Banker Gary Peters’ dishonesty to Michigan families has dug him into a hole, now he’s calling on his Washington connections like Harry Reid to bail him out. Michigan families will not be tricked, they know they can’t trust Gary Peters and Harry Reid,” Land spokeswoman Heather Swift said.

This post was updated at 10:15 p.m.