McConnell challenger features family in new ad

Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) primary challenger, Matt Bevin, launched a new ad this week that features some of the candidate’s nine children decrying “lies” they say McConnell has told about him.

{mosads}“Mitch McConnell is telling a bunch of lies about my dad,” a Bevin daughter says at the opening of the ad. “Don’t be fooled.”

“He plays with us, and he prays with us,” two other daughters say halfway through the ad, followed by one of his sons declaring, “He loves our mom.”

Bevin has struggled to gain traction in the primary, with a little under a month to go until Election Day. The ad is in part an attempt to improve his image among Kentucky voters, which has taken a hit from a barrage of negative attacks from McConnell and his allies focused on what they say is a tendency from Bevin to mislead voters.

Bevin’s campaign also recently lost a number of top staffers, including his spokeswoman, though he did hire former Tea Party Express Chairwoman Amy Kremer as an adviser.

McConnell’s campaign spokeswoman Allison Moore said it was “unfortunate” that Bevin was using his family in political ads.

“There’s no question that Matt Bevin has a beautiful family, but it’s unfortunate that he feels the need to bring them into the campaign to launch political attacks. All the statements our campaign has made about Mr. Bevin are true. Matt just isn’t the candidate he’s portraying himself to be to Kentucky voters,” she said.

But the ad also got the McConnell campaign into hot water over a tweet sent Tuesday attempting to knock Bevin for his claimed educational ties to MIT on his LinkedIn resume, which The Hill reported last year were exaggerated.

“I was waiting for ‘My dad went to MIT!’ ” the campaign tweeted.

Local Kentucky news outlet WFPL questioned whether the tweet was “a new low” for the McConnell campaign, and McConnell’s Democratic challenger, Alison Lundergan Grimes, blasted the WFPL story around to reporters. The campaign later deleted the tweet.

Bevin and McConnell will face off in the primary on May 20.