Democrat Heidi Heitkamp is out with a powerful new ad about child rape in which she highlights her work as North Dakota’s attorney general and declares that “government should never wait to do what’s right."
Heitkamp’s Senate campaign did not release the size of the buy, but said the ad would air statewide in North Dakota starting Tuesday.
“How do you tell a mother that the government wouldn’t protect her daughter?” Heitkamp says in the ad. “A serial rapist told prison authorities that when he got out, he’d rape a child, but the Legislature rejected my law that would have kept him in a mental hospital.
"When he was released, he raped a young girl.”
Heitkamp says following that incident, state lawmakers finally passed her law to keep predators behind bars beyond their prison time.
Video of empty swings bookends the ad.
Heitkamp doesn’t mention her Republican opponent, Rep. Rick Berg (N.D.), nor her affiliation as a Democrat in the ad.
Heitkamp has been outraising Berg, but also spending heavily on positive ads building her name recognition in North Dakota. In May, she launched an ad touting her support for North Dakota’s energy industry.
