Americans for Prosperity, the conservative super-PAC backed by the billionaire Koch brothers, is joining other top pro-Romney groups in advertising in Pennsylvania and Michigan, two states that had until recently been considered to be safely in President Obama's column.
According to the group, they will spend $3 million in the last week of the election on a pair of ads set to run in the two states.
The first of the two ads features former Obama voters who express their disappointment in the president's first term — a theme that conservative groups have hammered in the election's final weeks, hoping to swing voters who punched a ballot for the president in 2008.
The second commercial features the story of Shona Holmes, a Canadian woman who sought medical treatment in the United States after the government healthcare system in her native country denied her treatment. The ad is intended as a critique of the president's signature healthcare reform law.
The commercials come as Restore our Future and Americans for Job Security — two other large Republican super-PACs — have also announced aggressive spending in the states. The Romney campaign itself plans $2 million in advertising in Philadelphia before Election Day.
The Obama campaign said Tuesday it would battle back with its own ad buys in Michigan and Pennsylvania, along with an effort in Minnesota, where former President Clinton campaigned Tuesday.
But on a conference call with reporters Wednesday, senior Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod denied the campaign was worried about those states, pledging to shave his mustache if the president lost there.
Axelrod went on to accuse Republicans of attempting to project "fauxmentum" and said Obama was matching advertising spending in the states because "it's the prudent thing to do."
