2 days ago
Scoop: $5 million ad blitz targets GOP senators over "big, beautiful bill"
Two nonpartisan groups are launching a $5 million advertising campaign urging vulnerable Republican senators to oppose the GOP's mega budget reconciliation bill, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: It's one of the first major media campaigns against the tax and spending cut package, landing as Senate Republicans negotiate changes to the bill.
The two groups, Unrig Our Economy and Families Over Billionaires, will air the ads in seven states with Republican senators up for re-election next year.
The first ads launching on Friday will run in North Carolina, Maine and Iowa. Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Susan Collins (R-Me.) and Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) are considered potentially vulnerable.
Ads will follow in Alaska, South Carolina and Ohio,
The big picture: The ads focus on three main aspects of the GOP reconciliation bill that are causing heartburn for Republican moderates:
Provisions that the Congressional Budget Office estimates would lead to 16 million people losing health insurance.
Medicaid cuts that health care CEOs have warned could put rural hospitals at risk of closure.
A spike in preventable deaths that the University of Pennsylvania estimates would top 50,000 a year.
Between the lines: Trump's "big, beautiful bill" can afford to lose no more than three Republican votes in the Senate.
And GOP lawmakers are eyeing cuts to Medicare on top of Medicaid, senators said after a meeting at the White House on Wednesday.
"The president is willing to eliminate any waste, fraud and abuse anywhere," Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), who attended the meeting, told Axios, adding that that "opens up Medicare, as well."
What they're saying: Unrig Our Economy spokesperson Kobie Christian told Axios in a statement: "Republican Senators can try to minimize the effects of the Republican Tax Scam, but if they pass it, they would be putting hundreds of thousands of their constituents in danger."
