The extreme measure one House Republican is taking to win over Donald Trump

GOP Rep. Thomas Massie is operating for reelection in Kentucky. So why is he operating TV advertisements in Florida?

Like most every part in Republican politics, the answer has to do with one individual: President Donald Trump.

With Trump planning to go to his Mar-a-Lago club for Super Bowl weekend, Massie, a four-term Kentucky congressman, is buying TV promoting time in South Florida on the president’s favourite channel, Fox News. Massie’s aim: Communicate to the president that his Republican main challenger, lawyer Todd McMurtry, is a “Trump hater.”

The libertarian-minded Massie has broken with Trump on an array of key issues, which McMurtry has highlighted repeatedly since launching his campaign earlier this month. But Massie’s new business goals to show the tables on McMurtry, who's branding himself as a staunch Trump ally in lockstep with the president forward of the Might 19 main.

“He’s even worse than a Never Trumper. Todd McMurtry is a Trump hater,” says the ad, which opens with a photograph of Massie and Trump flashing grins and thumbs-ups.

Massie’s business then highlights a handful of important feedback McMurtry made about Trump on Facebook, principally in 2017, the first yr of Trump's presidency.

“Unhappy but true. Trump is the epitome of a weak male,” stated one McMurtry submit, learn in basic attack-ad trend by the narrator.

“Trump is an fool,” says one other.

“Hillary is true,” McMurtry writes in another remark. “He is temperamentally unqualified to be president.”

Massie’s business concludes by tying his main opponent to Hillary Clinton: “Siding with ‘Crooked Hillary.’ That’s Todd McMurtry, the Trump hater.”

The race in Kentucky’s deeply conservative 4th Congressional District, which spans the northernmost a part of the state, underscores how GOP primaries have gotten litmus checks for fealty to Trump. Republican contests in areas from the Philadelphia suburbs to Fort Value, Texas, are hinging on a easy issue: whether or not an incumbent House Republican has been sufficiently supportive of the president.

The importance of this check turned clear through the 2018 main season. Former Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) lost reelection to a challenger who highlighted his denunciations of the president. Two different Trump critics, Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Bob Corker of Tennessee, retired moderately than face main challenges from Trump-aligned opponents when their poll numbers sagged after blowups with Trump.

That has led a small group of Republicans, which now consists of Massie, to go to nice and weird lengths to dissuade the president from endorsing a main opponent. Alabama Rep. Martha Roby withdrew her help for Trump after the release of the lewd “Access Hollywood” tape simply previous to the 2016 election, prompting a livid response from native Republicans. So as soon as Trump took workplace, Roby turned a frequent visitor at the White Home in hopes of smoothing over her relationship with the president. At the time, Roby was making an attempt to fend off a main menace from a pro-Trump opponent. She gained reelection in 2018 but is retiring in 2020.

Massie’s ad cuts into the primary level of his opponent’s marketing campaign. McMurtry, one of the attorneys who represented Covington Catholic scholar Nicholas Sandmann in his defamation lawsuit towards several media retailers, has identified that Massie’s voting report is much less aligned with Trump less than another member of the Kentucky congressional delegation, saying that Trump can’t “rely on our congressman’s help.”

Operating in a district that Trump gained by more than 35 proportion points, McMurtry has vowed there might be no daylight between him and the president. Earlier this month, he tweeted out an image of the Trump Lodge in Washington.

“Hoping to see my favorite President,” McMurtry wrote.

It’s not the first time a candidate has purchased advertising time in South Florida hoping to get the president’s attention. Shortly after launching his Democratic presidential campaign last fall, former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg ran TV commercials in the area, coinciding with the president’s holiday journey to Mar-a-Lago.

And Massie’s marketing campaign is making no secret of its meant audience.

“We know the president will probably be in Florida this weekend, and we want him to know that our main opponent has not been a supporter of his,” stated Massie marketing campaign manager Jonathan Van Norman.

The Massie campaign is spending round $three,000 to air the business throughout Fox News packages this weekend in the West Palm Seashore space, including “Fox News Sunday.” The spot is predicted to air greater than 50 occasions on Fox Information over a 36-hour period.

The marketing campaign may also spend $13,000 to run the advert on Fox News in Kentucky from Feb. 1 by way of Feb. 10.

The McMurtry campaign responded to the advert by pointing to a number of pieces of laws and up to date votes on which Massie broke with Trump, including a decision aimed toward curbing the president’s potential to wage conflict with Iran.

“Each time President Trump needs him, Massie stabs him within the back,” McMurty marketing campaign supervisor Jake Monssen stated. “It will be great if Thomas Massie’s drawback was limited to previous Fb posts. It’s not. His drawback is his anti-Trump voting document in the House.”

While Trump has endorsed several Home Republicans who're making an attempt to struggle off primaries, aides to the president say he's unlikely to intervene within the Kentucky contest — either for or towards Massie. Whereas they acknowledge Massie has typically opposed the president, additionally they observe that he voted towards impeachment in the House.

That has not stored Massie, who is dealing with probably the most critical reelection menace of his congressional career, from pursuing a presidential endorsement. Van Norman stated the reelection campaign had been looking for Trump’s help.

“Definitely,” Van Norman stated, “Congressman Massie would welcome an endorsement from President Trump in his race.”

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