A Washington, D.C.-based political action committee that aims to help elect Republican legislatures will run television ads in Minnesota in the coming weeks that aim to attack Democrats over crime issues impacting metro areas.
The Republican State Leadership Committee says it will deploy its “six-figure” ad campaign in Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Earlier this summer the organization said that it would spend more than $38 million to help preserve Republican majorities or flip legislative chambers in a number of states, including Minnesota. Democrats currently hold 70 seats in the Minnesota House of Representatives. Republicans hold 64 seats.
“Joe Biden may be off the ballot, but his soft-on-crime policies remain in the states,” a narrator begins in the commercial that will run in the Twin Cities market this election season. “The reckless agenda from Democrats up and down the ballots have led to crime waves across the country.”
It also features a clip of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in the days following the 2020 riots in Minneapolis and other cities across the nation.
“The status quo has been … more police equals more safety, and that’s just wrong,” Harris says in the clip—from a June 8, 2020 appearance on MSNBC.
The RSLC didn’t indicate the dates the ad will begin running in the Twin Cities market. The commercial is the latest in a multi-phase ad series running in key battleground states, said Dee Duncan, RSLC president.
“American families are not only struggling as they deal with high prices at the grocery store or the gas pump, but are also increasingly feeling unsafe in their communities,” Duncan said. “Our ‘Republican Roadmap’ (ad) series is our playbook that we will continue to embrace to ensure more state Republicans are elected this November to reclaim and hold majorities in the states to combat the Democrats’ soft-on-crime agenda.”
Staff for RSLC told Alpha News earlier this summer that Minnesota, Michigan and Pennsylvania are three key states in position for a GOP “flip” in at least one of their legislative chambers. The ad will also air in Wisconsin, where Republicans are vying to preserve their majority in the state assembly.
Across the national landscape, Republicans control 57 state legislative chambers while Democrats hold majorities in 49.
A competing organization that helps elect Democratic legislators said in June that it believes the DFL crop of state House candidates gives Democrats “favorable odds” of maintaining their trifecta at the Capitol. It didn’t announce whether it would pledge money to Minnesota.
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee did announce last week that it added Ann Johnson Stewart, the DFL candidate for Senate District 45, to its “spotlight candidate” target map. Johnson Stewart, a former state senator with a lockstep DFL voting record, is battling Republican businesswoman Kathleen Fowke in a special election this fall. The winner of that race could determine which party controls the Minnesota Senate in January. The Senate is currently deadlocked at 33 Republicans and 33 Democrats, after the resignation of Kelly Morrison in June.
Hank Long
Hank Long is a journalism and communications professional whose writing career includes coverage of the Minnesota legislature, city and county governments and the commercial real estate industry. Hank received his undergraduate degree at the University of Minnesota, where he studied journalism, and his law degree at the University of St. Thomas. The Minnesota native lives in the Twin Cities with his wife and four children. His dream is to be around when the Vikings win the Super Bowl.
