Americans for Prosperity, a well-funded conservative group, is putting more than half a million dollars behind an attacking Arkansas Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor, considered one of the most vulnerable incumbents in the upcoming midterm elections.
The ad targets Pryor, who faces a tough re-election in a decidedly red state, on his support for Obamacare. It will begin running on television statewide on Thursday, and AFP has put $606,000 behind it.
“This is I think the first of many fronts that we’re going to approach Sen. Pryor on,” AFP’s Arkansas State Director Jason Cline told The Daily Caller. He says that the group will also have a “very aggressive” ground game — knocking on doors and running phone banks — to tell voters “how bad it’s going to be for families and businesses” under Obamacare, and that Pryor was one of the people who voted to enact the law.
“It’s a full assault,” Cline said.
The ad features a woman speaking to straight to the camera speaking about why “Obamacare doesn’t work. It just doesn’t work.” She is standing against a white background and there is no music.
“Health care isn’t about politics, it’s about people … Tell Sen. Pryor to stop thinking about politics and start thinking about people,” she says.
The ad does not mention Pryor’s Republican opponent, U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton.
Americans for Prosperity, which is funded by the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, is spending big against vulnerable Democrats this cycle. They recently put $1.4 million behind ads attacking Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan in North Carolina, Politico reported, and they have also run ads attacking Democratic Senate candidates in Iowa and Michigan, and Democratic Rep. Nick Rahall in West Virginia.
The Pryor campaign dismissed the ad as “misleading.”
“Folks here are sick of these misleading attacks from Congressman Cotton’s special interest backers, groups that care nothing about Arkansas but know that Cotton will be a vote to privatize Medicare and add to Washington’s partisan gridlock,” said Erik Dorey, Pryor’s deputy campaign manager, in a statement to TheDC. Pryor went up with a microsite Wednesday accusing Cotton of catering to special interest groups, like the Club for Growth and AFP, rather than Arkansans.