George Conway group hits Ernst in new ad

The Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump GOP super PAC, released an ad on Wednesday targeting incumbent Republican Sen. Joni Ernst’s (Iowa) record in Congress. 

The 30-second ad, titled “Crickets,” plays footage from an ad Ernst released during her first 2014 Senate run in which she describes her experience working on a farm in Iowa and castrating hogs. 

“Washington is full of big spenders. Let’s make them squeal,” Ernst says. 

The clip then shows a farm with crickets chirping in the background and the caption “It’s been six years, Joni. And all we hear are crickets.” 

Ernst’s campaign responded in a statement to The Hill, hitting her Democratic opponent, Theresa Greenfield. 

“The only crickets are from Theresa Greenfield who is silent on virtually every question from Iowans, ranging from radical proposals like defunding the police to her record of evicting small businesses,” said a spokesman for Ernst’s campaign. 

Ernst will face Greenfield, who easily won the state’s Democratic Senate primary last week, in November. 

The Cook Political Report rates the race as “lean Republican,” but a survey released last month by the left-leaning firm Public Policy Polling showed Ernst leading Greenfield by just 1 point. 

The Lincoln Project, which was co-founded by George Conway, a Washington, D.C.-based attorney married to White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, has released a series of ads attacking President Trump and Senate Republicans in recent weeks. 

The group most recently hit Trump over his response to the demonstrations in the wake of George Floyd’s death, accusing the president of turning Washington into “a warzone.”

This report was updated at 4:09 p.m.