Top House Republican super PAC launches August ad blitz

Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF), the top super PAC backing Republican House candidates, rolled out a $2.5 million advertising blitz for August as the GOP works to retake ground in the lower chamber.

The August ad campaign will target Democratic incumbents in seven House districts that President Trump won in 2016 and are among the GOP’s top flip targets.

“Summer may be winding down, but CLF is turning up the thermostat to keep Congressional Democrats sweating long after Labor Day has passed,” said CLF President Dan Conston. “Democrats are running scared because they know that starting today, they’ll no longer be able to hide the truth about their radical records in Washington.”

The opening salvo of the ad blitz will air in Oklahoma’s 5th Congressional District, which Democrat Kendra Horn flipped in 2018 and Trump won by about 13 points in 2016.

“What do cheesy lip balm, blue ketchup and Kendra Horn have in common? Great marketing, questionable results,” a narrator says in a 30-second clip that is backed by a $500,000 digital and television ad buy.

The ad barrage, which will air through Labor Day, comes as Republicans look to retake seats they lost in the 2018 “blue wave.” While the GOP is not anticipated to win back control of the House, there are still several vulnerable Democratic incumbents they plan on targeting, particularly those in districts Trump won comfortably in 2016 and hopes to carry again this November.

The other districts CLF is targeting are New York’s 11th and 22nd sistricts, South Carolina’s 1st District, New Mexico’s 2nd District, Virginia’s 7th District and Maine’s 2nd District. All were handily won by Trump and are rated as toss ups by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

CLF is spending between $200,000 and $650,000 in each of the districts.

The ad blitz is providing Republicans in the battleground districts crucial air and digital support as the GOP faces money and recruitment struggles in some key House races.

GOP alarm bells began ringing when the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) said in April that its Frontline members, a group of 42 freshman House lawmakers who flipped swing districts in 2018, brought in a total of over $31.1 million in the first quarter of the year, and that every frontline member outraised their challengers during the same period. 

“Money is such a crucial factor in the fact that Democrats are doing so well,” a senior GOP operative said at the time. “Republicans need to keep pace in the money race just to even like get close to where they need to be.”