Two pro-Israel groups are launching new campaigns against former Indiana GOP Rep. John Hostettler, who is seeking a return to Congress nearly 20 years after leaving office.
The United Democracy Project, a super PAC affiliated with the Republican Jewish Coalition and the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC, announced this week that they are launching ads targeting the former congressman, who is part of a mob of Republicans fighting to impeach the GOP representative. Larry Buckshon.
“John Hostettler has a terrible record on Israel compared to the voters of Indiana’s 8th District,” United Democracy Project spokesman Patrick Dorton told NBC News. “Voters deserve to know his ‘out of the box’ experience on this issue.”
The group started working an advertisement On Thursday, Hostettler, who served in Congress from 1995-2007, was criticized for his vote. opposes the resolution In October 2000, he expressed his support for Israel during its conflict with the Palestinians. The ad is part of a more than $500,000 campaign.
The Republican Jewish Coalition also cited that vote and others opposing aid to Israel in a statement He announced that he would spend 1 million dollars against Hostettler On the airwaves, Hostettler also said he was “peddling anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.” The Jewish Insider, which first reported the costs of the United Democracy Projectnoted that after leaving Congress, Hostettler wrote in his book that the United States entered the Iraq war to protect Israel.
RJC also announced its endorsement of state Sen. Mark Messmer in a crowded primary. Whoever wins the May 7 GOP primary will likely go to Congress, given the district’s strong Republican leaning.
This is the first competitive GOP primary that the United Democracy Project has participated in. The group has spent tens of millions of dollars on hotly contested Democratic primaries over the past two years, though the group has also run ads targeting GOP Rep. Thomas Massie after the October 7 attacks by Hamas against Israel.
“We evaluate Republican and Democratic districts. Our goal is to create the largest bipartisan pro-Israel majority in Congress,” Dorton said. “So we will consider every opportunity to do so, and we are particularly careful not to single out those who criticize US-Israel relations.”
These groups are not the first to spend money against Hostettler. A super PAC known as America Leads Action was recently launched an advertisement “Washington really changed John Hostettler,” said one storyteller, who tied Hostettler to liberal Democrats.
America Leads Action spent about $250,000 on ad airtime in the region, according to tracking firm AdImpact. There was also a group participated in other recent GOP primariestargeting candidates aligned with the hard-right House Freedom Caucus.
Attempts to contact Hostettler were unsuccessful, as his campaign website does not list contact information. No one answered a call to a phone number that appeared to belong to Hostettler.