GOP slams Dem Senate recruits as ‘retreads and rookies’

The Senate Republicans’ campaign arm is brushing aside Democratic challengers as inexperienced or old news ahead of a tough 2016 battle to keep GOP control of the Senate.

{mosads}The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) is out with a new “movie trailer,” released exclusively to The Hill on Thursday, that teases the likely Democratic Senate candidates for the upcoming cycle, while playing up the idea of a rift between progressives and the establishment after the party lost the Senate in the 2014 midterms.

“With a depleted bench, national Democrats are turning to a bunch of rookies and retreads for 2016,” NRSC spokeswoman Andrea Bozek told The Hill. “It’s clear Democrats are relying on a spaghetti strategy — throwing something at the wall to see what sticks.”

In the stylings of the hit movie series “The Hunger Games,” the video breaks up the field into “rookies and retreads.” Of those rookies, the NRSC slams Jason Kander (Mo.) as “inexperienced,” Rep. Patrick Murphy (Fla.) as “ambitious” and Rep. Tammy Duckworth (Ill) as “reckless.” All three are the Democrats’ top picks for Senate races in their respective states.

A news release paired with the video also chides Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev.), the Democratic front-runner handpicked by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid to replace him, as untested in a tough campaign. It also mentions P.G. Sittenfeld (Ohio), a young city councilman from Cincinnati who has waded into the state’s Senate primary.

It also needles a group of “retreads” that include former Gov. Ted Strickland (Ohio), former Rep. Joe Sestak (Pa.), and former Sen. Russ Feingold (Wis.). All are expected to be the party’s nominee in their states. The video’s narrator calls the group “has-beens, losers of elections long passed, but handpicked to try once again.”

Justin Barasky, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, dismissed the video’s characterizations to The Hill and highlighted three high-profile Republican politicians who decided against 2016 Senate bids.

“While Republicans suffer through abysmal recruitment failures in Nevada, Colorado, Florida & Indiana, numerous reports have touted the strength of star Democratic recruits like Tammy Duckworth, Russ Feingold, Catherine Cortez Masto, Patrick Murphy, and others,” he said.

“Our recruitment has put so many states on the map it’s already a question of how many seats Republicans lose, and for the NRSC this video has the unintended consequence of embarrassingly highlighting how much better our recruitment is going than theirs. Maybe if they spent more time recruiting candidates and less time making bad videos, they wouldn’t have lost out on Brian Sandoval, Mike Coffman, and Marco Rubio.”

Both parties’ campaign arms have been gearing up for a series of toss-up battles that could determine the balance of the Senate. The Hill has ranked the Wisconsin and Illinois Senate races as the two most dangerous for GOP incumbents.

Senate Republicans have had their own recruiting struggles in Florida, where a handful of top recruits passed on the toss-up race to replace Sen. Marco Rubio, who announced he would seek the presidential nomination instead of reelection. That race is expected to be a toss-up no matter who runs. The GOP will also move on without their top recruits in Colorado and Nevada, where Rep. Mike Coffman and Gov. Brian Sandoval turned down bids in their respective states.

The party’s chances are currently in better shape in Pennsylvania and Missouri, where two recruits are battling to topple incumbent senators. Sen. Pat Toomey (Pa.) has a substantial lead over Sestak in most polling, while the climate of Republican-leaning Missouri makes the fight an uphill battle for Democrats.

— This report was updated at 10:22 a.m.