First in Punchbowl News: The top Senate Democratic super PAC is launching a $700,000 digital ad blitz slamming Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) for opposing efforts to restrict congressional stock trading.
Majority Forward, a Senate Majority PAC affiliate, is airing two new ads in the Pine Tree State that accuse Collins of enriching herself while in office.
In one 30-second spot, the ad’s narrator accuses Collins of “the worst kind of greed… using insider information to trade stocks.”
“She’s opposing a bipartisan bill that would ban members of Congress from trading stocks. Our representatives should be serving the people of Maine, not lining their own pockets,” the ad continues.
There’s a corresponding 15-second ad that starts with a montage of pictures of Collins dressed in formal wear at receptions.
“After 28 years living this life in Washington, you can lose touch with Maine. Susan Collins is trying to keep it so members of Congress can get rich on insider trading,” the narrator says.
Collins’ team told the Bangor Daily News last month that the Maine Republican doesn’t support Sen. Josh Hawley’s (R-Mo.) plan to restrict lawmakers from trading stocks, citing existing law that bans insider trading.
The backstory. Democrats are trying to slam Collins for her husband’s stock portfolio. Collins insists she has no knowledge of her husband’s stocks. Collins’ office has said a third-party adviser controls her husband’s investment decisions, and neither Collins nor her husband trade stocks themselves.
The digital ads are running on streaming services and YouTube.
The Democratic messaging here diverges slightly from the playbook used against Republicans in other states. The stock trading issue is a dynamic that polls very well among Democrats and Republicans, but isn’t often used in campaign ads.
There’s also a third ad in the buy, a 15-second spot that bashes Collins for voting “to give tax breaks to billionaires.”
Even as SMP tries to negatively define Collins early in the race, there’s no clear Democratic favorite to face the incumbent next fall. National Democrats continue to wait for Gov. Janet Mills to make a decision, while political newcomers Jordan Wood and Graham Platner have jumped into the race.
Platner — an oysterman who rallied with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Monday — is taking the primary field by storm in the first weeks of his campaign.
