Freedom Partners, a conservative group with ties to the Koch brothers is launching a television ad buy targeting Democrats in the Iowa and Colorado Senate races.
The ads, provided early to The Daily Caller, target Colorado Democratic Sen. Mark Udall and Iowa Rep. Bruce Braley, the presumptive Democratic nominee for Senate, for supporting Obamacare, which the group says benefits health insurance companies, while simultaneously taking money from the health insurance industry.
“Congressman Bruce Braley voted for Obamacare,” says a female narrator in the Iowa ad, as brooding piano music plays in the background. “The government spent millions of taxpayer dollars to promote it. Now, health insurance companies stand to make billions, and Bruce Braley, he takes tens of thousands from his friends in the health insurance industries. For Iowans, it’s cancelled policies and higher costs. That’s not right.”
In the Colorado ad, a female narrator berates Udall for having “worked with health insurance companies to pass Obamacare. Now, Udall claims he’s standing up to them, while taking nearly $100,000 of health insurance industry money. The hypocrisy is shocking.”
The buy is $1.1 million split between the two states, and it will run for three weeks statewide beginning on Tuesday.
Braley campaign spokesman Jeff Giertz slammed the ad as “misleading.”
“The Koch brothers and their oil billionaire allies are once again attacking Bruce Braley with misleading ads because just like Bruce’s GOP opponents they support policies that would hurt Iowa’s economy, like blocking an increase in the minimum wage, undermining Medicare and Social Security, and sending us back to the days when insurance companies could kick people off their insurance when they got sick. Bruce Braley fights for Iowa’s working families because that’s where he comes from, and he’ll keep fighting for Iowa in the US Senate,” he said.
The Udall campaign also pushed back on the ad.
“The Koch brothers are pouring millions into our state because they know Congressman Cory Gardner will fight for their interests, not Coloradans’. Mark Udall has a long record fighting to protect Colorado’s special way of life and working for real change without compromising his principles or our Colorado values,” said Udall campaign communications director Chris Harris.