The Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF), a super PAC aligned with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), is launching ads targeting vulnerable Democratic Reps. Kim Schrier (Wash.) and Elaine Luria (Va.) on Wednesday.
The $615,000 in ads targeting Schrier and $395,000 aimed at Luria amount to over $1 million in additional ad buys for CLF, and are the PAC’s first ads in those districts, which the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates as “toss-ups.”
Messaging in the ads centers on inflation and the economy, and on tying the two members to President Biden.
The ad targeting Schrier directly addresses a claim in one of her own ads that she was “taking on the Biden administration to suspend the gas tax.”
“Schrier votes with Biden 100 percent of the time,” a narrator in the CLF ad says. It charges that Schrier voted for bills that contributed to inflation despite her knowing that they would do so, playing audio from a June 2021 telephone town hall saying that Democrats knew there was a “possibility” that the American Rescue Plan stimulus package could cause prices to go up and lead to inflation.
The ad targeting Luria says she praised the economy despite inflation and fears of a recession, with a narrator accusing her of “spewing liberal talking points, making excuses for Biden and [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi.”
The ads knock up CLF’s investments to $2.3 million in Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District where Luria is running, and over $4 million in Washington’s 8th Congressional District where Schrier is.
CLF announced in April that it has reserved $125 million nationwide in television and streaming service ad space through the November elections.
“Elaine Luria and Kim Schrier tell a different story back home, but in Congress they’re little more than loyal foot soldiers for Biden and Pelosi’s failed agenda,” CLF communications director Calvin Moore said in a statement. “With Americans suffering from record prices for gas and groceries, families can’t afford to send Luria and Schrier back to Congress.”
Schrier and Luria were both first elected to Congress in the 2018 “blue wave” that flipped their districts from GOP to Democratic control.
Schrier will face Republican businessman and former prosecutor Matt Larkin in November, while Luria will go up against Republican Virginia state Sen. Jen Kiggans.