The super PAC aligned with House Republican leadership is targeting two first-term Democratic congressmen in a new pair of ads tying them to the so-called Green New Deal.
The pair of digital ads from Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF) signal that Republicans are eager to hinge their 2020 effort to recapture control of the House on the sweeping environmental and infrastructure overhaul proposed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
{mosads}One ad going after Rep. Antonio Delgado (D-N.Y.) warns of “less freedom” and “higher taxes” under the Green New Deal, while pairing together Delgado and Ocasio-Cortez.
“Antonio Delgado and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have begun their radical Green New Deal assault on the American economy,” a narrator says in the ad.
In another spot hitting Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas), the super PAC accuses him of supporting a carbon tax and also seeks to tie him to Ocasio-Cortez, a freshman representative and self-described democratic socialist.
“His carbon tax and her Green New Deal means skyrocketing prices, higher taxes for Texas families,” a narrator says.
To be sure, neither Delgado nor Allred has signed onto a Green New Deal resolution laying out the goals of the program that was introduced last week by Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.).
Delgado backed the idea of a Green New Deal on the campaign trail last year, but hasn’t yet come out in support of the legislation.
Likewise, Allred said at a town hall over the weekend that he supports “some of the goals of the Green New Deal,” but that the specifics of the proposal still needed to be addressed.
The resolution introduced last week calls for cutting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions to net zero over 10 years, shifting 100 percent of America’s energy supply to renewable sources and guaranteeing jobs for all.
The ads mark an early effort by CLF and Republicans to win back two House districts that flipped from GOP control in the 2018 midterm elections.
Allred, a former professor football player, beat out former Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) in November, while Delgado, an attorney, defeated former Rep. John Faso (R-N.Y.) in his Hudson Valley district.
–Updated on Feb. 12 at 10:53 a.m.