Scoop: NRCC rolls out latest round of independent expenditure ads

The NRCC is rolling out its latest ads; we've got the exclusive.

With only seven weeks to go until Election Day, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) is rolling out its latest round of independent expenditure ads, several of which were first previewed by the Washington Reporter. 

The most consequential ad of this round is a first-of-its-kind one in Alaska, where Republican nominee Nick Begich did not run an ad during this cycle’s primary. This ad, which is paid for by both the committee and Begich’s campaign, goes after incumbent Rep. Mary Peltola (D., Alaska) for “voting like she lives in San Francisco, not out here.” 

Will Reinert, the NRCC’s national press secretary, told the Reporter that their ads are focusing on the “extreme Democrats [who] locked arms with the radical left to make families’ lives more expensive and less safe,” adding that “Americans cannot afford to double down on Democrats’ dangerous plans for the country.” 

In California, the committee is going up with an ad targeting Democrat Adam Gray for his vote to “raise your gas tax by 43 percent.” According to the Tax Foundation, California has America’s highest gas tax. Gray is running in a tossup race against Rep. John Duarte (R., Calif.). “Politician Adam Gray: rhymes with pay, as in 43 percent more in taxes at the pump,” the narrator notes.

In Washington’s 3rd District, the NRCC is going on the offense, with an ad targeting Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D, Wash.), warning that she “ignored our border crisis” and that she is “wrong on fentanyl.” Gluesenkamp Perez’s own words feature prominently in the committee’s ad.

“Like, nobody stays awake at night worrying about the southern border,” she says — twice in the 30 second ad.

The ads are part of a nationwide ad buy that includes ads targeting Reps. Vicente Gonzalez (D., Texas), Matt Cartwright (D., Pa.), and Jared Golden (D., Maine). One ad also goes after Democrat Kristen McDonald Rivet, who is running in an open seat in Michigan. The NRCC is running another to boost Rep. Don Bacon (R., Neb.) in his reelection, arguing that his Democratic opponent, Tony Vargas, is the “favorite politician” of criminals.

Vargas’s allies recently were caught in a failed attempt to recruit a third-party candidate to siphon votes away from Bacon, suggesting that they are not confident that Vargas can prevail in a one-on-one matchup. Bacon defeated Vargas in 2022, and the Democrats’ attempted reliance on a third-party vote sink is the latest in what he described to the Reporter as “their ends justify the means tactics.”

“Tony Vargas and the national Democrats stole my private military information, then emails from constituents protected by the Privacy Act, and [then played] ‘swamp games’ by bringing in third party candidates,” he said.

In June, the NRCC announced its first round of independent expenditure spending — which totaled over $45 million.