Campaign Almanac: Conservative group’s ads target Rep. Cindy Axne

The American Action Network, a conservative issue advocacy organization with close ties to House GOP leadership, launched a new ad Wednesday focused on Iowa’s lone congressional Democrat.

The $325,000 digital and TV ad buy urges U.S. Rep. Cindy Axne of West Des Moines to stop efforts to revive portions of President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” spending package, which Republicans claim would worsen inflation.

Democrats contend a narrower, health care-focused version of the original package would lower the cost of prescription drugs and reduce health care costs for millions of Americans.

The latest, “skinny” version of the legislation includes a two-year extension of expanded health insurance subsidies costing roughly $40 billion and a prescription pricing package that the Congressional Budget Office estimates will reduce deficits by nearly $300 billion over 10 years.

It omits key Democratic priorities such as clean energy and enhanced child care tax credits, a universal pre-K program and a federally funded paid family and sick leave program. Also stripped out are tax hikes on corporations and wealthy Americans to pay for the $1.75 trillion version of the package that passed the House in October but sank in the Senate.

The AAN ads highlight record gas prices across the country and urge members of Congress to pass the American Energy Independence from Russia Act. The bill would approve the Keystone XL pipeline to boost natural gas production and restart oil and gas leasing on federal lands and waters to offset Russian imports.

AAN has spent nearly $11 million urging Congress to pass the measure and to stop additional inflationary spending in the “skinny” reconciliation bill. In 2021, AAN spent more than $20 million on advocacy to halt earlier versions of Biden’s social spending package and climate change package.

Axne is in a tight re-election race against her Republican challenger, state Sen. Zach Nunn, in central Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District.

ATTORNEY GENERAL POLL: The campaign to be Iowa’s next attorney general is statistically tied, according to a new poll commissioned by a conservative tax policy organization.

Democratic incumbent Tom Miller, the longest-serving state attorney general in U.S. history, is tied with Republican challenger Brenna Bird, a former legal counsel to then-Gov. Terry Branstad, according to the poll that was commissioned by the Iowans for Tax Relief Foundation.

Miller was chosen by 44.5 percent of poll respondents and Bird 44 percent, according to the poll results.

The polling firm Cygnal surveyed 600 likely Iowa voters on July 13 and July 14. The poll’s margin for error is plus or minus 3.95 percentage points.

Gazette Des Moines Bureau