Democrats in two key Senate races are rushing to link GOP senators to the fallout of Donald Trump’s controversial remarks on women.
Campaigns in New Hampshire and Pennsylvania released ads Friday as the embattled GOP presidential nominee continued to face mounting sexual assault allegations in the wake of leaked 2005 audio of Trump discussing groping women without their consent.
{mosads}Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan campaign blasted Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) in a new ad, arguing her decision to rescind her support of Trump amounted to “political calculation” to try to bolster her reelection campaign.
“Months of degrading women and vulgar insults and Kelly Ayotte supported Donald Trump through all of it,” the ad’s narrator says.
Ayotte dropped her support for Trump Saturday, arguing she couldn’t “support a candidate for president who brags about degrading and assaulting women.”
Her decision has drawn pushback from some conservative voters. Though 61 percent of overall likely voters say Ayotte made the “right decision,” according to a WBUR poll released Friday, only 40 percent of GOP voters backed the choice.
Ayotte has a slim lead in the battleground Senate race. Democrats hope to use Trump to close the gap in the final weeks of the election.
Katie McGinty also hit Sen. Pat Toomey over Trump on Friday as the Pennsylvania Republican has been hounded by questions over the GOP nominee this week.
The Democratic Senate candidate is arguing that both Toomey and Trump are “dangerous” for female voters, who the GOP presidential nominee has struggled to win over.
“Even after Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women, Tomey stood by him,” the TV ad’s narrator says. “On women’s health, both Trump and Toomey would defund Planned Parenthood.”
The ad also links Toomey and Trump on abortion. The real estate mogul said in late March that there should be “some form of punishment” for women who have abortions. In a 2010 interview with Chris Matthews, Toomey backed penalizing doctors who perform abortions, including potential jail time.
Toomey has tried to distance himself from Trump through out his election, including launching his own TV ad on Friday.
“I have a lot of disagreements with Donald Trump. I’ve been very clear about that,” Toomey says in the ad. “But what’s important for Pennsylvanians is having a senator who will stand up to any president’s bad ideas.”
He is the only vulnerable GOP senator up for reelection who has refused to say if he will support Trump, and indicated this week that he might not announce how he will vote before the election.
McGinty leads Toomey by less than half a point, though Clinton is beating Trump in the state by more than 8 points, according to a Real Clear Politics average of polling.
Republicans are defending 24 seats in November, including a handful in purple states like New Hampshire and Pennsylvania that were previously won by President Obama.
Democrats need to pick up five seats—or four if they also retain the White House—to win back control of the Senate.