A new attack ad airing in the Lehigh Valley accuses Democratic candidates for Congress Bob Brooks and Ryan Crosswell of secretly being aligned with Trump and the Make America Great Again movement.
The ad, which is funded by an anonymous group, urges viewers to vote for Lamont G. McClure, the former Northampton County executive, calling him a “progressive Democrat” who would stand up to Trump. McClure’s campaign is not involved in the ad, and he denounced its message in an interview with The Morning Call.
McClure, Brooks, Crosswell and former PPL executive Carol Obando-Derstine are running in the May 19 primary for the Democratic nomination to face incumbent Republican Rep. Ryan Mackenzie in what’s expected to be a highly competitive election in November.
The ad is funded by a political action committee called “Lead Left PAC.” According to its website, the PAC “stands against MAGA extremists who will infect our country with Donald Trump’s agenda.”
According to the Federal Election Commission website, Lead Left PAC filed its official paperwork yesterday through treasurer Tammie Cannon in Tallahassee, Florida.
No information about Lead Left PAC’s spending and donors is currently available. Federal deadlines will not require the group to disclose any donor information until after the election, leaving local Democrats in the dark about who is trying to influence their vote.
Punchbowl News, a D.C.-based politics news outlet, is reporting that metadata on the Lead Left PAC website includes a link to WinRed, which is a Republican political fundraising platform. Specifically, it leads to a donation page for the organization “Standing Tall Action,” which, according to its website, stands for “America first” principles and includes quotes from Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
Lead Left PAC is a 501(c)4 nonprofit, which are sometimes referred to as “dark money” groups because they are not required to disclose their donors but can contribute money toward electioneering efforts. The same PAC has also spent money attempting to tie John Cavanaugh, a Democrat running in a competitive primary in a Nebraska swing district, to Trump, according to Punchbowl News.
The three candidates named in the ad airing in the Lehigh Valley denounced it..
“I am running my own campaign, we were doing just fine on our own, we are going to win without this outside help, and it’s one of the reasons why I have said that Citizens United needs to be overturned by constitutional amendment,” McClure said in a phone interview.
Citizens United is a 2010 Supreme Court decision which paved the way for unlimited amounts of money to be raised and spent on campaigns.
“Republicans are targeting me because I’m the candidate they fear the most. They don’t want to face me in November because they know this firefighter will smoke Ryan Mackenzie, flip this seat, and stop Donald Trump’s cruel agenda,” Brooks said in a written statement. “This is exactly what’s wrong with our broken and corrupt political system. A MAGA super PAC can parachute in at the final hour and spend millions of dollars in Republican dark money to spread lies about me and my record of service to the Lehigh Valley.”
“The message this ad is trying to send is total nonsense,” said Crosswell’s campaign manager Nick Mattes. “The message it actually delivers is that Republicans are scared of Ryan Crosswell. They should be.”
A news release from Crosswell’s campaign notes that, while the ad accuses Crosswell of helping Trump while he was a federal prosecutor, it uses footage of Crosswell testifying against alleged corruption in Trump’s Department of Justice.
Reporter Lindsay Weber can be reached at Liweber@mcall.com.