The attack ads began in early 2017, planting doubts well ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. Against ominous background music and storm clouds, the Republican-financed spots hit Tammy Baldwin, Wisconsin’s Democratic senator, over the Affordable Care Act, Iran and veterans health care.
By July, a Milwaukee radio station was carrying audacious ads about Ms. Baldwin’s support for abortion rights.
“Did you know one out of three babies aborted in America are black? One out of three. And Tammy Baldwin is a big reason why,” the ad said. “That could be the next Frederick Douglass or Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King they’re aborting.”
Then came the positive ads describing one of her opponents, Kevin Nicholson, as a former Marine; an “outsider”; a businessman; and, like Ronald Reagan, a convert to conservatism.
For many national Republicans, Ms. Baldwin has emerged as the top target in the 2018 midterms: Donors from outside the state are spending twice as much money on the race so far as on any other Senate contest this year, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks money in politics. Much of the money has gone toward television and radio ads.
The big spending doesn’t just signal that each party sees the Senate seat as winnable. It’s also a measure of intensity on both sides to prevail in Wisconsin after Donald J. Trump shocked Democrats in 2016 by being the first Republican presidential nominee to carry the state since 1984. National Democrats are bent on winning it back in 2020 — and getting Ms. Baldwin re-elected is a crucial step toward that goal.
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Source: The Fight for Wisconsin Is On as Outside Money Pours Into Senate Race
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