Former North Dakota Attorney General Heidi Heitkamp (D) is out with a new ad that strongly defends her support of Democrats' healthcare reform legislation and attacks Rep. Rick Berg (R-N.D.) for voting to repeal the law.
"I'm Heidi Heitkamp and 12 years ago I beat breast cancer. When you live through that, political attack ads seem silly. I would never vote to take away a senior's healthcare or limit anyone's care," she says in the ad. "There's good and bad in the healthcare law that needs to be fixed, but Rick Berg voted to go back to letting insurance companies deny coverage to kids or for preexisting conditions. I approve this message because I don't ever want to go back to those days."
The ad marks a rare instance since the law passed of a red-state Democrat standing up and fighting hard for the law on its merits — many have sought to distance themselves from the legislation or simply not talk about it in 2010, and that pattern has reemerged again this year.
But Heitkamp is on record for her strong support of the law — leading to months of Republican attacks — and she'll need to at least neutralize the issue in order to beat Berg in the heavily Republican state.
A Democratic strategist said the ad is a sign more Democrats will take the issue head-on, and fight with Republicans on the bill.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee counter-punched, pointing to reports that Heitkamp had never questioned portions of the bill until she became a candidate and calling the ad her "revisionist history tour."
"Every victim of breast cancer deserves our respect and admiration, but it's neither admirable nor respectful when you're a politician doing anything and everything to mislead voters on your liberal record," said NRSC Press Secretary Lance Trover. "She couldn't point to even a single instance where she ever said it needed to 'be fixed' until after she decided to run for the U.S. Senate."
The Hill rates this race a "tossup."
