Koch-aligned group makes last ad push for GOP candidates

Americans for Prosperity Action (AFPA), a PAC linked to the Koch family, has launched a slate of “closing argument” ads across five battleground Senate races, urging voters to choose Republican candidates over socialism.

The ads, which The Hill obtained, are part of an existing $22 million ad buy across Alaska, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire and Ohio. They began running on digital platforms and connected TV and cable starting Wednesday.

Each ad features an actor as a voter, speaking directly to the camera from a kitchen table and voicing frustration with “the bills, the prices.” The actors push that socialism and its tenets, like the “government taking over my family’s healthcare” and abolishing private insurance, are not the solution.

Several of the Democratic candidates in those states are not socialists or linked to groups like the Democratic Socialists of America, which the ads admit. But they still tie those candidates to the broader Democratic Party and what Republicans perceive as its leftward drift.

“I know, Mary Peltola isn’t a socialist,” said the actor in one of the Alaska ads. “But she always follows her party. This isn’t the Democratic Party we knew.”

Republicans have built a midterm message around contrasting socialism with Republican values of small government, free markets and business-friendly policies, hoping to convince voters that they have the best way to bring down prices.

The GOP is facing headwinds in those five states as President Trump’s approval rating remains low and the war in Iran, which is contributing to high prices for gas and other goods, continues.

The AFPA is an influential conservative political group that supports Republican candidates through ads and door knocking to talk with individual voters, among other things.