Senate Dems launch $9.1M NC ad buy

The Senate Democrats’ campaign arm has launched a $9.1 million ad buy hammering North Carolina Republican nominee Thom Tillis. 

{mosads}The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee declares in its first ad in the state released Wednesday that Tillis cut nearly $500 million from North Carolina education funding, charging he put a “bulls-eye” on public schools.

Polls show Tillis and incumbent Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) within a few points of each other in the Tar Heel State, a critical race for Democrats as they try to hold on to the Senate. 

“Tillis sliced and diced education, creating chaos in our classrooms and hurting middle class families, while giving tax breaks to yacht and jet owners,” a female narrator says in the ad.

The ad is an attack on Tillis’ record as Speaker in the state House, whose Republican-led Legislature cut taxes last year, reducing education funding by $480 million over two years, according to The Associated Press.

According to a Washington Post fact check, though, an EMILY’s List ad that made a similar claim was exaggerated and the education budget was bolstered. 

“Kay Hagan’s Democratic allies, including Barack Obama and Harry Reid, are trying to buy North Carolina’s Senate race with a flood of shamefully false television ads that contain outright lies already debunked by national fact-checkers,” said Tillis spokesman Daniel Keylin. 

The North Carolina buy is the Democrats’ second independent expenditure so far this cycle. Last month, they purchased time in Iowa; Republicans have made buys in Georgia and Michigan.