The GOP Senate primary rivals are set to meet again in a televised debate tomorrow, and the negative campaigning is at an all-time high.
Read more:
CBS17: As Budd’s endorsements grow, Senate race opponents continue with attack ads
- Following this weekend’s rally in North Carolina where former President Donald Trump promoted Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ted Budd, the other top contenders in the primary responded Monday as polling shows Budd with a clear lead.
- Former Gov. Pat McCrory debuted a new ad Monday morning featuring an image of Budd over a wheelbarrow full of crap and ends with the tagline, “Cut the crap in Washington.”
WFAE: NC Republican Senate candidates Budd and McCrory spar over how close is too close to Trump
- McCrory released a digital ad last week linking Budd and controversial Republican U.S Rep. Madison Cawthorn together, saying they would be speaking at what McCrory called the “Budd-Cawthorn rally.”
- The ad suggested that Democrats will paint Budd as an extremist. And it showed video footage of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Budd voted against certifying the election, though he later said in an interview that he thought Joe Biden was the legitimate president.
ABC News: The TIP with Alisa Wiersema
- In addition to Trump’s backing, Budd is also seeing an outpouring of support from the Club for Growth, a conservative super PAC, which launched multimillion-dollar ad buys that tout Budd as an ally of the former president and his policies. The ads also cast Budd’s main primary opponent, former governor Pat McCrory, as a “lying liberal” who exercises “dirty tricks.”
- McCrory is also playing in the ad wars — in a new ad released on Monday, the former governor is posing next to a wheelbarrow full of manure with Budd’s image hovering above the pile, surrounded by flies.
- “There’s a lot of crap in politics, just like Congressman Budd’s false campaign,” McCrory said in defense of his branding as a conservative, before referencing his gubernatorial enactment of a law that banned so-called “sanctuary city” policies in North Carolina.
- McCrory is also associated with another controversial policy nicknamed the “bathroom bill,”which restricted which public restrooms transgender people could use. The policy drew mass protests and rebukes from high-profile businesses and organizations, and the backlash contributed to McCrory’s gubernatorial reelection loss.
- More recently, his role in the issue was resurfaced by Trump, who mocked McCrory as “the bathroom governor” at a recent North Carolina rally.
WRAL: Budd leads McCrory in US Senate race, WRAL News poll shows
- “Pat McCrory isn’t for sale and neither is this seat,” said Jordan Shaw, a spokesman for McCrory, alluding to outside spending for Budd.
WRAL: Trump’s staying power in NC politics at stake after rally bolstering hardline Republicans.
- “In his speech at Trump’s rally Budd referred to McCrory as a ‘two-time loser.’”
WTVD: Former president Donald Trump holds rally in Selma Saturday endorsing NC lawmakers.
- “Last June, Trump publicly endorsed Budd at an NCGOP event in Greenville; Saturday, he continued to do so, taking a swipe at one of his key challengers, former Governor Pat McCrory.”
###