September 6, 2024 Press Releases

DSCC FRIDAY TAKEAWAYS: GOP SENATE CANDIDATE QUALITY ISSUES HERE TO STAY, SHEEHY’S “ROCKY” WEEK OF EVEN MORE “SCANDAL,” BAD BOSSES: MCCORMICK EDITION

AUGUST SLIPPED AWAY INTO A MOMENT IN TIME…BUT THE GOP’S SENATE CANDIDATE QUALITY ISSUES ARE HERE TO STAY → Following months of reporting highlighting Senate Republicans’ candidate quality problems, a fresh wave of news stories is detailing even more scandals plaguing GOP Senate candidates as the final months of the campaign begin. Read some of the new stories from the past weeks alone for yourself.

SHADY SHEEHY HAD ANOTHER “ROCKY” WEEK FULL OF EVEN MORE “SCANDAL” →

📰 WHAT MONTANANS ARE READING (PART 1): SHEEHY’S MEMOIR NEVER GOT CLEARANCE FROM THE PENTAGON → The Guardian reports that Tim Sheehy “failed to follow Pentagon rules for clearing portions of his autobiography about his time as a US Navy Seal” with “no record it was submitted for vetting,” a process required “to ensure information damaging to the national security is not inadvertently disclosed.” The report details that Sheehy’s “lack of official Pentagon clearance…add[s] to his list of campaign controversies.”

📰 WHAT MONTANANS ARE READING (PART 2): SHEEHY’S “RACIST” COMMENTS A “SLAP IN THE FACE” TO NATIVE AMERICANS → Following reporting first in the Char-Koosta News, the New York Times details how “some Native Americans…were appalled” by Sheehy’s comments that “perpetuat[ed] racist stereotypes about Native Americans,” marking the “latest development in the candidate’s rocky campaign.” Sheehy’s offensive comments garnered widespread national and local news media coverage.

📻 WHAT MONTANANS ARE HEARING: “THE SOUND OF MONTANA PUBLIC LAND BEING AUCTIONED OFF TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER” → The DSCC released a new radio ad in the Montana Senate race, “Auctioneer,” highlighting how Tim Sheehy is a rich out-of-stater who is threatening access to Montana public lands. Listen to the ad for yourself.

📺 WHAT MONTANANS ARE SEEING: SHEEHY’S WEEK OF “SCANDAL” “NEVER SEEMS TO STOP” → NonStop Montana recapped Sheehy’s week of bad headlines, reporting that “it just never seems to stop in the scandal department for the Sheehy campaign.”

BOMBSHELL REPORT: CEO MCCORMICK SILENCED VICTIMS OF “UNWANTED SEXUAL ADVANCES” → USA Today Network reporting reveals that as CEO of Bridgewater, David McCormick “pressed former Bridgewater employees to remain silent about unwanted sexual advances they said they experienced at the company” – even going as far as to threaten one female employee that “she would be in litigation for the rest of her life” if she broke her silence.

HAPPY LABOR DAY TO EVERYONE EXCEPT THE GOP CANDIDATES WHO “STIFF[ED],” “BURNED,” AND “SCREWED” WORKERS WHILE “SHIPP[ING] JOBS” OUT OF STATE AND “MISMANAG[ING]” THEIR BUSINESSES→

TAKE IT FROM THE EXPERT, SHADY SHEEHY IS A “FRAUDSTER” AND “SCAMMER” → Gallatin County-based financial expert Marc Cohodes slammed Tim Sheehy in the Daily Montanan for “let[ting] his taxpayer-funded company bleed millions while he cashed out on bonuses and a multimillion-dollar salary,” saying his “actions have questionable legality.”

FAT CAT MORENO NOT FELINE SO FINE AFTER NEW REPORT DETAILS HOW HE “BURNED” OHIO WORKERS → Spectrum News details how Ohio businessman Bernie Moreno has faced “more than a dozen lawsuits alleging wage theft,” and revealed “previously unreported court records” that show Bernie Moreno destroyed even more evidence to get out of paying his employees the overtime they had earned.

AND, OHIO WORKERS SLAM FAT CAT MORENO, LEAVE HIM LICKING HIS WOUNDS → A wave of new reporting details how workers in Martins Ferry, Ohio “denounced” and “slam[med]” Bernie Moreno for “screw[ing]” his employees and being “nothing but a liar.”

HOVDE “SHIPPED JOBS OUT OF WISCONSIN” FOR “CHEAPER LABOR” → Despite campaigning against “the flight of U.S. manufacturing jobs to foreign countries,“ HuffPost finds that Eric “Hovde invested millions of dollars in firms that laid off hundreds of Wisconsin workers” and “shipped jobs out of Wisconsin in favor of cheaper locales.” After the news broke, Wisconsinites have been reading and hearing about Hovde’s disrespect for workers.

CONNECTICUT MILLIONAIRE MCCORMICK SCREWS OVER TEACHERS, POLICE AND FIREFIGHTERS → American Journal News reports that “Dave McCormick’s business mishandled funds” that “result[ed] in higher retirement costs for teachers, firefighters, and police officers” and forced “thousands of Pennsylvania teachers…to pay up to an additional $300 each year from their salaries.”

GOP SENATE CANDIDATES’ THREAT TO REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS IN THE SPOTLIGHT (AGAIN) →

CRUZ WAS AN “INFLUENTIAL,” “KEY PLAYER” IN ENABLING TX ABORTION BAN, “DOESN’T CARE” ABOUT THE WOMEN “LIV[ING] THROUGH TORTURE” → The Guardian details how Ted Cruz “was a key player in transforming the judiciary to pave the way for Dobbs” and that “the [reproductive health care] crisis in Texas already belongs to him.” LoneStar Live piles on, reporting that “two Texas women who had to leave the state to receive an abortion…sa[id] they ‘lived through torture’ because of [Cruz]” and that Cruz “doesn’t care” about the women suffering under Texas’ abortion ban.

CANDID CAMERA (PART 1): MORENO CALLS ABORTION RIGHTS VOTERS “CHEAT[ERS]” → Jezebel reports on newly obtained audio of Bernie Moreno “blam[ing] abortion victory on organizers cheating” after “Ohio voters decisively passed Issue 1.” This adds to reporting from the Columbus Dispatch detailing how Moreno “donated $100,000 to a group opposing Ohio’s abortion rights amendment.”

CANDID CAMERA (PART 2): WHILE SAM BROWN TRIES TO “EVAD[E]” HIS ABORTION RECORD, NEW AUDIO CATCHES HIM THREATENING REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS → The Nevada Independent reports on new audio of Sam Brown saying “he’s ‘not for changing our existing law’ on abortion ballot measure,” suggesting he would vote against enshrining reproductive freedom in the Nevada Constitution, resulting in wide coverage. This comes as a report from Mother Jones slams the “longtime abortion opponent” for “evading” his position on abortion and as the Las Vegas Sun Editorial Board hammers Brown for “policing and controlling women’s bodies.”

🎾 WHILE AMERICANS DOMINATE THE US OPEN, GOP CANDIDATES GET GRAND SLAMMED WITH BAD HEADLINES →

MCCORMICK’S DOUBLE FAULT AS PA’S BIGGEST LOSER → David McCormick was crowned “biggest loser” by City and State Pennsylvania after confusing Philadelphia, MS, with Philadelphia, PA, the second time he’s won the title.

LOVE – 30 FOR KARI LAKE’S “DISASTER” OF A CAMPAIGN… → The Arizona Republic details Kari Lake’s “disaster of an Arizona Senate race,” lampooning the “catastrophically clueless” candidate, who has spread “conspiratorial cries” about “stolen elections.”

…MAKE THAT LOVE – 40 FOR LAKE, WHO SEEMS TO BE PLAYING DOUBLES (WITH FOREIGN DICTATORS) → The Copper Courier details Kari Lake’s “documented pattern of her preference for authoritarian-led countries over her own,” finding that “Kari Lake has consistently gone to bat for authoritarian leaders across the globe…who have vocalized a keen interest in ending the United States’ role as a global power” and has “praised foreign authoritarian leaders” “38 times.”

AND SAM BROWN CAUGHT PLAYING DOUBLES (WITH PROJECT 2025 LEADERS) → The leader of a group behind Project 2025 is spending millions of dollars supporting Sam Brown, the Las Vegas Sun reports, detailing how “Sam Brown doesn’t distance himself from the radical plans detailed in Project 2025.”

🏈 AS FOOTBALL SEASON KICKS OFF, SAM BROWN’S PREFERRED TEAM IS…IN OHIO? → While Sam Brown claims that he “comes from the most humble of backgrounds,” the Daily Kos details how his family actually “owns the Cincinnati Bengals, an NFL team worth $4 billion, and that his relatives have been supporting his political ambitions for a while,” writing that his biography is “sounding less and less working class and a lot more dynastic.”

KARI LAKE CALLS LAW TO “IMPROVE FINANCES OF SENIORS” A “BURDEN TO AMERICAN[S]” → The Arizona Republic detailed how Ruben Gallego is championing “a federal law that…is expected to save [seniors] money on prescription drugs,” the same law “Kari Lake opposed” and “called a burden to American families.”

WHAT MARYLANDERS ARE SAYING: HOGAN’S “RECORD OPPOSING ABORTION RIGHTS” IS “DISQUALIFYING” → A Maryland voter slammed Larry Hogan in the Baltimore Sun, saying “voting for Hogan means voting for a Republican takeover of the Senate. That’s disqualifying enough, but Hogan’s record opposing abortion rights should discourage any Marylander who values freedom from voting for him.”

READ IT AND WEEP, RICK: MUCARSEL-POWELL HAS THE “MOMENTUM” → Florida Politics reports how “Debbie Mucarsel-Powell claims momentum” over Rick Scott in a new memo released by her campaign, which details how “Mucarsel-Powell continues to gain grassroots momentum against Rick Scott, who is historically unpopular and will face a highly motivated Democratic electorate this November.” Read the memo for yourself.

LOOK, DAVE! YOU MADE THE FRONT PAGE → The Pennsylvania Democratic Party placed a digital ad in the Washington County Observer-Reporter highlighting David McCormick’s support for the disastrous corporate tax giveaway that raised taxes on over 375,000 Pennsylvania families.

FACT CHECK CORNER →

❌ FALSE (THE ROGERS EDITION) → PolitiFact finds that Mike Rogers “surfaces inaccurate claim about noncitizen voters in Senate race,” “rat[ing] Rogers’ claim” that “Slotkin ‘voted recently to let illegals vote in U.S. elections’” as “false.”

❌ FALSE (THE MORENO EDITION) → PolitiFact reports that “Bernie Moreno misleads on Sherrod Brown votes for federal aid for migrants,” finding that Moreno made “false” claims that Sen. Sherrod Brown “voted to ‘give illegals taxpayer funded stimulus checks, health care, even Social Security.’”

❌ FALSE (THE HOVDE EDITION) → The Wisconsin State Journal details Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s record of introducing and supporting legislation to address the fentanyl crisis, disproving Eric Hovde’s claims that she’s “done ‘absolutely nothing’ on fentanyl,” adding that “to say she’s done ‘absolutely nothing’ to address the problem is contradicted by [her] legislative record.”

ADD IT TO THE QUEUE →

Tammy Baldwin’s campaign released a new ad, “Gotta Change,” highlighting the impact of Tammy Baldwin’s fight to ensure American infrastructure is made with American iron and steel instead of Chinese products.

Montanans for Tester launched a new ad highlighting his fight to put Montana’s farmers and ranchers first over foreign adversaries.

And, Montanans for Tester released another new ad highlighting how Tim Sheehy wants to take reproductive freedom away.

Debbie Mucarsel-Powell released a new ad, “Freedom,” highlighting how Rick Scott is trying to take away Floridians’ freedoms by banning abortion, raising taxes and ending Social Security.

Gallego for Arizona released a new TV ad, “Resume,” highlighting Republican support for Ruben.

Colin Allred’s campaign launched a new Spanish-language ad, “Opiniónes,” holding Ted Cruz accountable for his decades-long effort to raise the retirement age for Texans on Social Security and Medicare, backing plans to cut Medicare funding and voting to raise prescription drug costs.