PAC Says “Extremist” Hassan Has Endangered New Hampshire Presidential Primary Status

AMAC Exclusive – By Seamus Brennan

Fresh off a successful ad campaign in Arizona that helped inject new life into the state’s newly competitive Senate race, a conservative Super PAC has now expanded its campaign to New Hampshire to target Senator Maggie Hassan, another endangered Democrat seeking reelection this fall. In Arizona, the PAC scored a big win when Republican Senate candidate Blake Masters adopted the PAC’s “extremist” theme, which the PAC debuted in Phoenix TV spots against incumbent Democrat Senator Mark Kelly. The group is now taking a similar message to New Hampshire, hoping to surface Hassan’s extreme voting record in the closing weeks of the race.

While focusing on Hassan as a “key enabler” for Biden who votes with him 96 percent of the time, this new TV spot also hits Hassan particularly hard for her support of the federalization of U.S. elections, which would allow Department of Justice bureaucrats to jeopardize New Hampshire’s jealously guarded first-in-the-nation status in presidential primaries. The PAC says that this ad template—which had previously been used in New York in addition to Arizona—“cracks the code” against Democrats like Hassan and has thus aroused donor interest in additional states.

The ad also takes aim at the New Hampshire media’s dutiful use of Democratic Party talking points (with a screen showing newspaper headlines) and implores the local New Hampshire state media to stand up to the corruption of the national media and to end Hassan’s “free ride” in the press.

“Hassan was so afraid of a left-wing primary challenge she even went along with empowering Department of Justice bureaucrats to end New Hampshire’s greatest tradition,” said George Landrith, president of Frontiers of Freedom Action (the PAC that is airing the ad), in a press release. “It is incredible she isn’t even being asked about her far-left voting record and especially her votes to endanger the presidential primary.”

“Everything she says and every TV spot is out of the DC consultants’ playbook,” Landrith continued. “Who’s running her campaign?” The ad charges that Hassan has used “scripted lines” and that her “whole campaign” is being run from Washington, D.C., by left-wing consultants, and is being financed by liberal dark money.

This November, Hassan’s Republican opponent is former U.S. Army General Don Bolduc, who Landrith called in his statement “credible and likable in his interviews.” Bolduc, he said, is “one of those soldiers who has become a great candidate. But he must use the ‘e’ word, because the ‘extremist’ charge really cracks the code against Democrats like Hassan for the simple reason that it’s the truth—and the truth actually works in politics. Her voting record shows she cared more about the approval of the media and the left-wingers who threatened her with a primary than that of her New Hampshire constituents. She can’t claim to be a moderate.”

“We think the New Hampshire media wants to be fair, but they can’t just repeat Democratic talking points. They need to give General Bolduc a hearing and ask Hassan some tough questions like those in our TV spot,” Landrith stated.

The ad’s release comes shortly after group aired similar TV spots in New York and Arizona markets, criticizing Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Arizona’s Mark Kelly as having made a “corrupt bargain” with the national media—and especially the far-left wing of the Democratic Party—which was hailed by one conservative news outlet as the “greatest campaign ad of all time.” The ad displays an image of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and other members of “The Squad” with the headline “CORRUPT BARGAIN,” suggesting that the far-left wing of the Democratic Party and billionaire donors have scared Senate Democrats like Hassan into moving further left than their constituents wanted.

Like the New York and Arizona TV spots, the first minute of the Arizona spot focuses chiefly on the media for trying to cover up left-wing corruption, displaying headlines about media scandals and smears—including its suppression of the COVID-19 lab leak theory, censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop bombshell, promotion of the Russian collusion hoax, coverup of Hillary Clinton’s email scandals, and refusal to report on Biden’s blackmailing of the Ukrainian government. The ad also catalogues other political smears, like those against General Michael Flynn, students at Covington Catholic High School, and parents protesting anti-Americanism in their local schools.

The ad goes on to blame the media for elevating Joe Biden to the presidency by letting him run “from his basement” and “covering up his incompetence and ill health.” It then attacks Biden as “the worst president in modern history,” and features videos of him falling up the stairs on Air Force One and taking directions from the Easter Bunny at a White House event with the headline “EASTER BUNNY RUNS WHITE HOUSE EVENT.”

Around the halfway mark of the two-minute TV spot, the ad begins labeling Hassan as Biden’s “key enabler,” noting that she votes with Biden 96 percent of the time and “cast the deciding vote on huge spending bills that cause shattering inflation and recession”—referring to the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act,” which economists predict will even further aggravate inflation and raise costs for New Hampshire families.

Additionally, the ad notes how attempts by the likes of Biden and Hassan to alter the makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Senate, American citizenship, and the Electoral College represent a “scorched-earth, rule-or-ruin” attack on longstanding American democratic institutions.

“The GOP has never gotten across to the people how those bills would have destroyed the secret ballot, put Department of Justice bureaucrats in charge of our elections, abolished citizenship rights, packed the Supreme Court into irrelevance, radically changed the U.S. Senate, and would make only a few states matter in presidential elections by abolishing the Electoral College,” said Landrith.

Like the two ads that preceded it, the two-minute New Hampshire spot is followed by a one-minute “chaser” version that summarizes the longer version. “These are not 30-second attack ads that try to manipulate people, but heavily informative narrative ads that work particularly well with Independents, women, and young people who appreciate being given context and a story that put a larger perspective around the issues,” said Landrith.

As Republicans seek to win back control of the Senate this fall, New Hampshire could prove to be a pivotal state in what is widely expected to be a close election cycle. Should Landrith’s strategy succeed, it could prove instrumental not only in helping the GOP win back Congress, but also in helping a Republican Senator get elected in New Hampshire for the first time since 2010.