NC campaign ad watch: A concerted effort to keep Mark Harris out of Congress | Opinion

You’ve probably noticed candidate mailers piling up in your mailbox, or that you can’t watch the evening news without seeing multiple political ads at every commercial break.

Those who live in parts of Raleigh, Greensboro or Charlotte have probably noticed it more than most, due to fiercely competitive Republican primaries in the 6th, 8th and 13th Congressional Districts this year.

In a recent ad roundup, I mentioned that one super PAC with unknown origins is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on an ad campaign opposing Mark Harris in North Carolina’s 8th Congressional District. The PAC is called America Leads Action, and it only formed at the beginning of the year.

We now have a better idea of who is behind that effort. New fundraising reports — first reported by progressive news site Daily Kos — show that the top donor to America Leads Action is Jay Faison, a businessman and philanthropist from North Carolina who frequently donates to conservative causes. Rob Walton, one of the heirs to the Walmart fortune, has also made a sizable donation to the group, per federal filings. So far, the group has only targeted two candidates: Harris and a congressional candidate in Texas.

America Leads Action has now spent more than a million dollars opposing Harris and is running a second TV ad against him. Instead of focusing on the 9th District absentee ballot fraud scandal, this ad criticizes Harris’ record on immigration and Social Security.

But the effort to keep Harris out of Congress is bigger than that. Another group, Conservatives for American Excellence, is sending out anti-Harris mailers to voters in the Charlotte area. Conservatives for American Excellence is a PAC funded by several GOP mega-donors and is opposing a small number of Republican candidates that include Harris as well as Bo Hines in North Carolina’s 6th District.

One of their mailers features a cartoonish, photoshopped image of Harris flexing his arm muscles next to the words “When it comes to fighting illegal immigration… Liberal politician Mark Harris is weak!” Another shows an arrow pointing to a basset hound and says, “This guy is an expert at sniffing out candidates with ZERO credibility on fighting voter fraud — and look who he found!” A second arrow then points to an image of “Shady Politician Mark Harris.”

At least one of Harris’ opponents in the 8th District primary is targeting him, too. N.C. Rep. John Bradford’s campaign has sent out similar mailers hitting Harris on key issues like immigration. One mailer says Harris has “fought against everything we stand for” when it comes to illegal immigration, while another says voters “can’t trust” Harris to protect their Social Security. Both mailers urge recipients to “vote no on Mark Harris” and encourage them to vote for Bradford instead.

What’s particularly interesting is that the ads seem to be hitting Harris from all directions. For example, the ads criticizing Harris’ stance on Social Security seem to suggest he is too extreme, while the ads attacking his record on immigration appeal to a different subset of the GOP base by suggesting he is too “liberal.”

It’s also worth noting that both PACs have spent far more against Harris than he has spent on his own campaign. According to the campaign finance website OpenSecrets, Harris’ campaign has only spent $196,143, while nearly $1.7 million in outside money has been spent opposing him. Both Bradford and Allan Baucom have outraised and outspent Harris in the 8th District primary. Bradford’s campaign has spent more than $1.1 million, while Baucom’s has spent $495,000.

Perhaps GOP elites and Harris’ opponents believe that he is more of an electoral threat than the fundraising numbers imply. Of course, in a primary as crowded as this one, he doesn’t have to be the frontrunner in order to cause problems for his opponents. If no candidate receives more than 30% of the vote, the top two finishers will advance to a runoff, dragging the primary cycle out even more.

As one of the most prominent candidates in the race, Harris could easily receive a sizable chunk of the vote and prevent another candidate from reaching that 30% threshold. There’s also a scenario in which those looking for an alternative to Harris could be split between Bradford and Baucom, leaving Harris as the top vote-getter. At this point, it might be anyone’s race, so this will be one of the most interesting ones to watch on Election Day.