Political action committees have reported spending more than $570,000 to oppose U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor’s re-election, and ads targeting him are already airing on television and radio stations across Arkansas.
The 2014 election is in 17 months. The Democratic primary is a year away. Pryor has no announced challenger.
So far, more than half of the money spent opposing him has come from a Washington, D.C.-based political action committee called Senate Conservatives Action, which has reported spending $319,797 on advertisements and direct-mail fliers. The group’s spokesman called defeating Pryor its “top priority” for 2014.
Pryor has also faced ads from left-leaning groups over his vote against legislation that would have expanded background checks for gun purchasers.
Pryor said he would have preferred to put off the campaign until at least January, but “they are trying to drag me into this race and make it earlier and earlier, and I can’t stop them from spending all this money.”
He said by phone Friday that he has watched how similar groups have gone after senators in other states.
“I’ve known for years that they would come after me,” Pryor said. “These outside groups have done this around the country, and I think Arkansans are smart enough to know what’s going on here.”
University of Arkansas at Little Rock professor Art English said there’s an early influx of campaign ads because some political action committees are allowed by law to spend unlimited amounts of money and because Pryor is the state’s only Democrat left in Congress.
English said Republicans want to make Pryor sound beatable.
“When people think you are vulnerable, I guess you are vulnerable,” English said.
He said national and state Republicans are likely thinking “here’s an opportunity to sweep out an avowed Democrat and elect a Republican” or “there’s only one Democrat left, let’s get him. There is a certain amount of vulnerability in that perception.”
The early ads have prompted some people to wonder whether 2014 will be a repeat of 2010, when incumbent Blanche Lincoln lost her Senate seat.
Multiple media outlets have classified Pryor as one of the most vulnerable Democrats in the U.S. Senate. In April, Roll Call, a leading Capitol Hill newspaper, wrote that the “distinction of most vulnerable incumbent senator boils down to either Arkansas’ Mark Pryor or Louisiana’s Mary L. Landrieu.”
Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, lists Pryor’s bid as one of five “tossup” races on his website, Sabato’s Crystal Ball, found at centerforpolitics.org/crystalball.
Pryor said he disagrees that his job is at risk.
“Would they be spending all this money if I was that vulnerable?” he said. “No one’s panicking here. We know what we have to deal with.” LINCOLN’S LOSS
Lincoln faced opposition months before she could even file for re-election. Ads casting the two-term senator in a negative light began flooding the state in the fall of 2009, more than 14 months before the general election.She didn’t respond, on the air, until March 2010.
Lincoln’s popularity dropped during debate over the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which Republicans branded “Obamacare.” One poll taken at the time found her approval rating at 27 percent.
She also fought, and won, a costly primary in which labor organizations backed her opponent, former-Lt. Gov. Bill Halter.
In total, opponents reported spending $6.8 million on ads and mailers against Lincoln.
Despite spending $11.5 million, she was unseated when then-3rd District Rep. John Boozman secured 57.9 percent of the vote.
On Friday, Pryor took issue with comparisons to Lincoln’s re-election bid.
“I have to be in Washington when I’m voting, but otherwise I’m in the state. I’ve been able to keep that really tight connection,” Pryor said.
He said people see him frequently around Arkansas and that he still reflects their views.
“They are mad at Congress, but they are not mad at me,” Pryor said. “They know I’m trying to work through whatever problems and find solutions.”
But University of Central Arkansas political science professor Gary Wekkin said Pryor’s situation is similar to what Lincoln’s was, with Democrats as well as Republicans attacking him.
The problem for Pryor, Wekkin said, is “he’s always run just on his name, not as a Democrat. Republicans are going to be after him no matter what. The Democrats are going to say this guy has never really been a Democrat. Itwill be very tough for him.”
Wekkin said the negative ads could make it difficult for Pryor to raise money and could draw out a primary opponent.
“I wonder if some of these groups that are spending money on him aren’t looking for one,” Wekkin said.
THE ADS
Senate Conservatives Action recently began running television and radio ads criticizing Pryor for his vote on the 2010 federal health-care law. The group’s website, www.pryorleftus.com, includes the slogan “The Mark Pryor Record. Right for Obama, Wrong for Arkansas.”
One radio ad calls Pryor “dangerously liberal” and says his vote “doesn’t represent Arkansas values.” Another ad asks “what happened to Mark Pryor? I think Barack Obama is what happened.”
A spokesman for the group, Matt Hoskins, said running ads early gives them a chance to frame the debate.
“We believe the best strategy is to educate people early so he doesn’t have time to reinvent himself and hide his record. We’re starting early because we believe it’s the most effective way to defeat him,” Hoskins said.
The group reported to the Federal Election Commission that it spent $1.4 million in 2012. It has already spent half a million opposing Pryor in the past few months. It has not spent money in any other race.
“Mark Pryor’s record is way out of step with the voters in Arkansas, and we believe this race gives us the best opportunity to replace a liberal with a conservative in the U.S. Senate,” Hoskins said.
The group received $900,000 from the Senate Conservatives Fund, which is based in the same office and run by the same attorney as Senate Conservatives Action. The fund also spent $75,000 in April and May on online ads and direct mail targeting Pryor.
The fund was affiliated with former South Carolina Republican U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, who left Congress this year. He cut formal ties with the fund in 2012 so that it could create the super PAC Senate Conservatives Action, which can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money.
On Wednesday, Senate Conservatives Action released its second of three ads, which criticizes Pryor for his vote on the 2010 federal health-care law.
North Little Rock businessman Bill Shroyer says in the ad that the number of employees at his swimming-pool business has dropped from about 100 to 25. He doesn’t say what about the healthcare law led to the elimination of about 75 jobs.
“The policies that you are creating in Washington are killing these companies,” Shroyer said.
Pryor Campaign Manager Jeff Waver called the ad “false and hypocritical” because Shroyer accepted federal stimulus funds to expandhis business and criticizes the government in the ad.
Ads by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns are also airing, targeting Pryor for his resistance to gun-control legislation that would have stiffened background-check requirements for gun buyers.
Pryor’s stance on that legislation put him in opposition with his own party and the president.
The group has said it spent $350,000 to air the commercial.
Calls to the group’s spokesmen were not returned Friday.
Pryor responded with his first ad of the 2014 campaign, saying that the legislation supported by Bloomberg wouldn’t do enough to stop shootings.
“No one from New York or Washington tells me what to do. I listen to Arkansas,” Pryor says in the ad.
One group, the National Shooting Sports Foundation of Newtown, Conn., is sticking up for Pryor and his vote in advertisements that will run on 19 radio stations across the state until Tuesday.
Foundation Senior Vice President and General Counsel Lawrence Keane said the ad isn’t about the 2014 campaign, but is about letting Arkansas’ senators know that the gun industry appreciates the vote. He said the group spent about $100,000 on the ad.
WHAT’S COMING
Though no Republican has announced plans to challenge Pryor, pundits frequently name freshman 4th District U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton of Dardanelle as a potential contender.
Cotton, a lawyer and military veteran with no previous political experience, helped Republicans gain control of Arkansas’ four U.S. House seats when he won with 59.5 percent of the vote in November.
Aided by supporters of Washington, D.C.-based Club for Growth, Cotton spent more than $2 million to defeat state Sen. Gene Jeffress of Louann, a Democrat who raised less than $100,000 for the race.
Club for Growth has already reported spending $181,856 to oppose Pryor through direct mail and television ads.
Arkansas’ U.S. Rep. Steve Womack has also been mentioned as a possible challenger.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 06/09/2013