President Donald Trump speaks while flanked by House Republicans after they passed legislation last week aimed at repealing and replacing Obamacare.
(CNN)It didn’t take long for advocacy groups to attack swing-district Republicans who voted for the American Health Care Act, the bill to repeal and replace Obamacare.
One such group, Save My Care, is set to launch a six-figure ad campaign Monday targeting 24 Republicans who voted “yes” on the bill, which narrowly passed the House last week. The campaign will be a mix of digital and television ads in the districts of the vulnerable Republicans, who include Arizona’s Martha McSally, Maine’s Bruce Poliquin and New Jersey’s Tom MacArthur.
MacArthur, a moderate, was the author of the controversial amendment that offered waivers for states to avoid certain provisions of the health care law, including guaranteed coverage of preexisting conditions. The move was key to boosting support from the House Freedom Caucus, the conservative group of members that prevented the original version of the bill from passing.
The ad that will run in McSally’s district features a narrator claiming that “McSally voted to raise your costs and cut coverage for millions.”
Many of the members whom the ad will attack, such as Florida’s Carlos Curbelo, are moderates who labored over their decision to support the bill before finally casting an affirmative vote. Curbelo remained he was “undecided” until moments before the votes were actually cast. The bill passed with 217 votes, a two-vote margin.
Curbelo and his moderate colleagues have argued their votes were designed to move the process along, and the final legislation will alleviate the many concerns over the bill and fix the current health care system.
“Today’s vote is just a step in the legislative process for this bill — not the end of it,” Curbelo said after voting to send the measure to the Senate. “We have worked hard to improve the legislation, but we have a long way to go.”
No matter what the legislation ultimately looks like, it is clear Democrats and their aligned groups are prepared to use the House vote as a weapon in their battle to win back the House in 2018. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi warned Republicans that the vote would come back to haunt them.
“The American people now have to judge them by how they have acted — not by how we have characterized what they stand for,” Pelosi said in a press conference following the vote. “Now, they are on record.”
The vote has been viewed as a potential watershed moment for Democrats in their goal of winning back the House. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report changed the status of 20 different Republican-held house seats toward potential Democratic pickups after the vote. Still, Democrats have a difficult task ahead of them, as Republicans enjoy a more than 40-seat majority.
Here is the full list of House Republicans the ad will target:
Don Young (AK-01)+
Martha McSally (AZ-02)+
Jeff Denham (CA-10)
David Valadao (CA-21)
Steve Knight (CA-25)
Mimi Walters (CA-45)
Darrell Issa (CA-49)
Brian Mast (FL-18)
Carlos Curbelo (FL-26)
David Young (IA-03)
Peter Roskam (IL-06)
Bruce Poliquin (ME-02)+
Tim Walberg (MI-07)
Jason Lewis (MN-02)
Erik Paulsen (MN-03)
Don Bacon (NE-02)
Tom MacArthur (NJ-03)+
Mark Amodei (NV-02)+
Lee Zeldin (NY-01)
John Faso (NY-19)
Elise Stefanik (NY-21)
Pete Sessions (TX-32)
Scott Taylor (VA-02)
David Brat (VA-07)
+ Denotes a district where the campaign will be a mix of both television and digital. The remaining districts will be digital only.
[“Source-cnn”]
