Americans For Prosperity Action, the super PAC arm of the conservative political network funded by billionaire Charles Koch and other megadonors, plans to run ads on Monday supporting the presumptive GOP candidates in two key Senate races, Pennsylvania and Nevada.
AFP will spend $1.6 million in Pennsylvania to support Republican candidate Dave McCormick and $600,000 to support GOP candidate Sam Brown in Nevada.
Ads featuring McCormick and Brown highlight their service as veterans and highlight their priorities of protecting borders, fighting inflation and expanding American energy.
The An ad featuring McCormick ends with the narrator calling him “a strong leader we can trust.” with Brown ends with the narrator saying, “Sam Brown has served you before and will serve you again.”
Both Brown and McCormick lost GOP Senate primaries in 2022, but they will be the party’s nominee in their home states this year, with the support of Sen. Steve Daines, chairman of the Senate GOP campaign committee, and others.
Republicans need two Senate seats to flip the chamber, or one seat plus the tie-breaking vice presidency.
Ashley Klingensmith, AFP Action’s Pennsylvania general counsel, wrote in a statement that McCormick is ready to “be part of the solution by ending Washington waste.”
McCormick will face three-term Democratic Sen. Bob Casey in the general election. Casey faces tough re-election Republicans are campaigning as they eye Pennsylvania to regain their majority in the Senate.
In addition to the ad highlighting McCormick, AFP Action will run a second ad bashing Casey in Pennsylvania.
The ad begins by highlighting how long Casey has been in office and how much he earns. The narrator then says: “And what did we get in return? Sky-high inflation, a $34 trillion national debt, a wide-open southern border, radical anti-energy policies.
Ronnie Najarro, AFP Action’s Nevada senior counsel, attacked Brown’s potential Democratic challenger there, Sen. Jackie Rosen, calling Brown “the best candidate to defeat Jackie Rosen in November.”
AFP in Nevada has already spent $135,000 on digital ads for Brown and has been knocking on doors for months.
This ad buy comes a week after AFP Action Get seven-figure advertising in Montana and the group is focusing on down-ballot races after failing to unseat Donald Trump in the 2024 GOP presidential race.
AFP has endorsed former UN ambassador Nikki Haley for president, but said on Sunday it would stop spending money to support her campaign. This comes a day after Haley lost to Trump in the presidential election in his home state of South Carolina.
In an email obtained by NBC News and confirmed by two sources who received it, senior counsel Emily Seidel wrote: “We do not believe that any outside group could make a material difference in expanding his path to victory. ”
The subject line of the email was “3 ways to win,” referring to AFP Actions’ three-pronged approach to 2024, including the presidential, US Senate and US House elections.
“Swing voters will decide this election. And Joe Biden leads Donald Trump 2 to 1 among independents,” Seidel wrote in his email under the Senate and House section. “The most important and most difficult thing we have to do is convince the millions of voters who would never vote for Donald Trump to vote for Republican candidates for the Senate and House who will advance our common principles. AFP Action has done it before and we are confident we can do it again.”