NRCC makes first investment in Oregon special House race

Republicans have made a last-minute investment in a special House race in Oregon that Democrats assumed the GOP had long written off.

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) is transferring a total of $85,000 to the campaign of businessman Rob Cornilles. The funds will be used for a coordinated media buy to air ads attacking Democrat Suzanne Bonamici starting on Wednesday.

The ads are the first investment by a conservative group in a race where Democratic groups have already spent more than $1 million, and could indicate that Republicans are suddenly more bullish about their prospects in the race to replace former Rep. David Wu (D-Ore.).

"Suzanne Bonamici's allies' attacks are dirty, garbage, insulting to voters' intelligence," the narrator says in the ad. "Bonamici's record? Even worse — she supports a plan that takes $500 billion from Medicare, raises taxes and hurts seniors."

The ad ends with Cornilles declaring jobs and the economy as his No. 1 priority if elected to the House.

Bonamici's campaign pointed out that at least two of the claims in the Cornilles ad have been debunked by PolitiFact, calling it an aggregious misrepresentation of her record.

Voting is already under way ahead of the Jan. 31 election, which is being conducted entirely through mail-in ballots. That means any ads airing between now and the election will have diminishing results, as more and more voters will have already sent in their ballots.

Democratic groups and liberal political action committees ranging from EMILY's List and Planned Parenthood to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) have already dropped well over a million on the race. Democrats had expected national Republicans to stay out of the race in a district that President Obama won by 25 points in 2008.

"You have to look no further than how much the Democrats are spending to see that Rob has made this into a competitive race," said an NRCC spokesman.

Cornilles’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

For months, Republicans in Oregon had quietly noted that unlike Bonamici, whose candidacy was bolstered by heavy involvement from national Democrats, the NRCC had left Cornilles largely to his own devices, keeping its role limited to the periodic distribution of press releases touting his candidacy.

But the NRCC investment also comes as Cornilles’s campaign has been circulating a new internal poll from a GOP pollster showing that he is now within four points of Bonamici, a former state lawmaker. Earlier polls had suggested Bonamici held a double-digit lead over her Republican opponent.

Democrats said they always expected the race would tighten up at the end, but also questioned the accuracy of the poll by the Cornilles campaign.

Democrats have framed their heavy investment in the race as an insurance policy and a take-nothing-for-granted strategy, downplaying speculation they were concerned about a loss in a district that Wu — a Democrat — held for seven terms before resigning in July amid a sex scandal.

But with House Democrats looking ahead to November and their fight to retake control of the House, Democratic groups have sought to secure a substantial win in the Oregon race to help them make their case that American voters want to see Democrats in control of Congress.

Both sides are drawing comparisons to a Nevada special election in September that offered an opposite scenario. Republican Mark Amodei (R-Nev.), aided by hundreds of thousands of dollars from the NRCC, finished more than 20 points ahead of Democrat Kate Marshall, who got little DCCC help in a district where the GOP was heavily favored to win.

As they look south from Oregon, Republicans are noting that, to shore up their candidate in Nevada, they spent a fraction of what Democrats have to support Bonamici. But Democrats said the last-minute spending from the NRCC was more about avoiding the impression of having left their candidate without a lifeline.

"This has sort of been saving face," said a Democratic source. "It's not a race they think they can win, but they kind of have to put something in there, because it's a Republican candidate they need to support."

This post was updated at 5:53 p.m.

Watch the ad:

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