Liberal group targets ND senators on day of Trump tax speech

A liberal group is running a television ad on Wednesday in North Dakota urging the state’s senators to oppose tax cuts for the wealthy as President Trump visits the state to push for a tax-code overhaul.

The ad, from the Not One Penny campaign, asks the public to tell Sens. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) and Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) that they shouldn’t give any tax cuts “to millionaires, billionaires and wealthy corporations.” Not One Penny said it is spending five figures on the ad buy.

Hoeven and Heitkamp are both expected to travel to North Dakota with Trump on Air Force One, and they have both welcomed the president’s visit to their state.

{mosads}Heitkamp is one of several Democratic senators who is up for reelection next year in a state that Trump won, and the White House views her as a Democrat who could back the president’s tax efforts.

Trump is expected in his speech to note that President Ronald Reagan’s 1986 tax-reform law earned the vote of a Democratic senator from North Dakota.

Trump has said that he wants to provide tax relief to the middle class and end tax breaks that largely benefit special interests. But independent analyses of tax plans Trump has released have found that they would largely benefit the wealthy.

“North Dakotans know that Republicans’ so-called tax plan benefits the wealthiest Americans at the expense of working families,” said Nicole Gill, executive director of Tax March and a Not One Penny coalition partner. “We are hopeful that Senators Heitkamp and Hoeven will stand up to Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress to protect Main Street, support middle-class families, and pledge to give not one penny in tax breaks to millionaires, billionaires, and wealthy corporations.”

The Not One Penny campaign has also run similar ads in competitive House districts held by GOP lawmakers, as well as in the district of Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), who has made comments supporting a lower corporate tax rate.