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GOP super PAC ties 2 freshmen to Ocasio-Cortez in new digital ads

CLF knocks lawmakers over Green New Deal even though they aren’t co-sponsors

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is featured in new digital ads from the Congressional Leadership Fund. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call file photo)
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is featured in new digital ads from the Congressional Leadership Fund. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call file photo)

A Republican super PAC is wasting no time tying vulnerable House Democrats to New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as it launches digital ads in two districts Monday. 

Congressional Leadership Fund, a group aligned with House GOP leadership, is targeting two freshman lawmakers, Antonio Delgado of New York and Colin Allred of Texas, in the new ads shared first with Roll Call. The ads are part of a five-figure digital buy.

The spots link the two congressmen to Ocasio-Cortez, a self-described Democratic socialist, and the so-called Green New Deal. Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward J. Markeyintroduced the resolution last week, which is aimed at eliminating carbon emissions in the United States.

Neither Delgado nor Allred have signed on as co-sponsors of the Green New Deal resolution, but CLF is tying them to the resolution anyway. 

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the new leader of the Democratic Party and Colin Allred and Antonio Delgado are already falling in line with her radical agenda,” CLF vice president Zach Hunter said. “The so-called Green New Deal is nothing more than a far-left wish list that will result in higher taxes and less freedom for Americans.”

The ads feature images of Ocasio-Cortez and the two freshmen.

Antonio Delgado and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have begun their radical Green New Deal assault on the American economy,” the narrator says in the 15-second ad. “Delgado and AOC: a bad deal for New York.”

The ad targeting Delgado features video from a forum last year with the New York League of Conservation Voters where Delgado said, “Why aren’t we thinking of a Green New Deal?” while suggesting bold ideas were necessary to address climate change.

Colin Allred and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are hard at work eliminating Texas energy jobs,” the narrator says in the ad aimed at the Texas Democrat.

Both Allred and Delgado have discussed the importance of addressing climate change.

“I certainly support some of the goals of the Green New Deal, and I think we don’t know all of the specifics around it and that’s where I think we’re going to have to flesh out some of that,” Allred said when asked at a Sunday night town hall meeting if he supported the resolution. He went on to discuss the use of wind and solar power in Texas, and advocated the U.S. rejoining the Paris climate accord.

Delgado wrote in a Medium post last week that he plans to analyze proposals put forth by the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. He also wrote that he is planning to introduce his own legislation requiring the Department of Energy to “conduct a study identifying what green jobs are currently in demand — and will be in demand in the future — in the U.S. energy sector, and what skills are required to hold them.”

Delgado unseated GOP Rep. John J. Faso by 5 points last November in an upstate New York district that Trump won by 7 points in 2016. Allred knocked off Republican Pete Sessions by 7 points in a Dallas-area seat that Hillary Clinton carried by 2 points two years earlier.  

Both were listed among the National Republican Congressional Committee’s 2020 targets last week. 

Also watch: First 2020 Senate race ratings are here

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