Dem PAC defends Kirkpatrick, Barber
January 14, 2014
Democrats are fighting back against a conservative group’s attack on incumbent U.S. House members representing battleground districts in Arizona.
The House Majority PAC, a Washington, D.C.-based group that is helping Democrats keep and expand seats in the U.S. House, will vigorously defend U.S. representatives Ron Barber and Ann Kirkpatrick against anti-Obamacare ads from the conservative Americans for Prosperity.
“[The ads] defend Kirkpatrick and Barber and hit back Americans for Prosperity’s misleading claims,” said Andy Stone, the group’s spokesman.
The TV commercials will air this week in the Tucson and Phoenix markets. The ad buy is worth $200,000, Stone said.
The House Majority PAC spent $1 million in the 1st Congressional District and in the 2nd Congressional District during the elections last year.
The AFP ads, which will run for three weeks at a cost of $650,000, zero in on Obama’s promise that Americans would be able to keep their insurance plans and note that Politifact called it the “Lie of the Year” as policies are being canceled. Politifact is the research arm of the Tampa Bay Times.
This is not the first time that AFP, which seeks the repeal of the federal law, has gone after the two Democrats. The group also ran TV ads blasting Kirkpatrick and Barber last year.
The latest ratings by the Rothenberg Political Report, a non-partisan newsletter covering congressional races, identifies Barber’s contest as a pure tossup and Kirkpatrick’s as a tossup tilting slightly Democratic