An ad from gun control advocacy group Giffords PAC used footage of the Columbine High School shooting and other violent mass shootings to target GOP Senate candidate Joe O'Dea, prompting criticism.
"Here in Colorado it just keeps happening, but instead of standing up for Colorado families, MAGA Republican Joe O'Dea is standing with the gun lobby, opposing Common Sense gun safety reforms like closing loopholes and keeping guns out of the hands of criminals," the narrator in the ad says, as brief footage of people fleeing the Columbine shooting and the Aurora movie theater shooting flash on the screen.
"Here in Colorado we felt the pain of gun violence so many times but Joe O'Dea sides with the gun lobby not us," the ad says.
O'Dea's campaign called the ad a "dishonest attack" that is "disgusting even for the low-life political hacks who run Joe Biden’s political operation" in a press release.
Supporters of O'Dea also came to his defense, saying his plan of "more cops and a criminal justice system getting serious about enforcing the numerous gun laws already on the books — will do more to protect Colorado than a bunch of politicians in Washington, D.C. passing another law," according to Jefferson County Sheriff Jeff Shrader.
"They’re using this tragedy without consideration of victims and survivors. It’s shameful,” said school safety advocate John Castillo, who has argued for arming school staff to prevent violent attacks.
“Joe O’Dea has a plan to protect our communities. Cut the federal bureaucracy to fund more cops and more border security," said Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers. "Invoking images of Columbine and Aurora is a new kind of tawdry, and as Colorado has proven, more gun laws don’t stop these tragedies. More cops in our communities and schools will."
Giffords PAC, which endorsed Democratic incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet in the Colorado Senate race, said last week that it will spend $2.5 million to run the ad on TV and online.
"Joe O’Dea’s support of the gun lobby’s ‘guns everywhere’ agenda is wrong for Colorado," said Peter Ambler, executive director and co-founder, Giffords. "Coloradans know the consequences of gun violence all too well, and we are confident they will oppose Joe O’Dea in large part because of his refusal to keep communities safe from this public health crisis.”
Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, Dr. Mehmet Oz, was endorsed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday.
“Dr. Mehmet Oz is a proven leader and will work tirelessly to address the challenges facing job creators, the workforce, and families in Pennsylvania," the group's senior political strategist, Ashlee Rich Stephenson, said in a statement.
"Dr. Oz’s commitment to free enterprise and pro-growth policies is impressive and is a stark contrast to the policy views of his opponent, John Fetterman. There is no greater divergence on issues than in this election here in the Keystone State," he added.
Stephenson argued that Oz's Democratic opponent, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, would raise taxes, and support ending the Senate filibuster. He added that Fetterman had "flip flopped on his energy position."
"The U.S. Chamber is proud to endorse pro-business champion Dr. Oz in his campaign for U.S. Senate, and we look forward to working with him in the next Congress," he said.
Oz also received an endorsement from the Pennsylvania State Troopers Association on Wednesday, adding to his support from law enforcement after the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police endorsed him earlier in the week.
Fox News' Power Rankings have rated the race between Oz and Fetterman as a "tossup."
President Biden will continue with his plans to attend a Democratic political fundraiser Wednesday night despite Hurricane Ian pounding Florida with devastating 150 mph sustained winds.
During Wednesday's White House press briefing, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked by a reporter if Biden would indeed attend the 7:00 p.m. EST Democratic Governors Association reception in Washington, D.C. amid the potentially devastating hurricane.
Jean-Pierre responded that the team didn't have "any changes in his schedule."
Biden is scheduled to return to the White House from the event at 8 p.m.
Read more from Fox News' Brandon Gillespie here.
{{#rendered}}Pennsylvania Democrat Rep. Susan Wild recently claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin is to blame for inflation in America, despite warnings that inflation was a political problem for Biden well before Russia invaded Ukraine.
During a candidate night event held by the Muslim Association of the Lehigh Valley last week, Wild, who currently represents Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional District, insisted that inflation in the United States is nothing compared to what Europeans are experiencing, and that Putin is to blame for the financial strain placed on Americans.
"Believe you me, I know the prices have gone up. But, I will also tell you that prices have gone up worldwide," Wild said. "The inflation that we are seeing in this country, as painful as it is, is nothing compared to the inflation that they’re seeing throughout Europe. And so where did we go wrong is the question? It’s not that we went wrong. It is that Putin is an evil dictator who invaded Ukraine and created a cascade of circumstances that led to the kind of inflation that we have now."
"We were just coming out of a pandemic with an excellent economic recovery when that invasion of Ukraine started," Wild claimed additionally. "That is what started the inflation and it’s going to take a while, unfortunately, to completely tamp it down."
Drawing a comparison between America and the European countries that have also fallen victim to the crippling effects of high inflation, Wild, who seeks to retain her post in the House later this year, concluded that Americans are "still in a better place than most countries in Europe."
Read more: Pennsylvania Democrat blames Putin for inflation despite price increases prior to Ukraine invasion
A new poll released Wednesday showed a majority of Democrats in Ohio overwhelmingly oppose banning individuals who aren't U.S. citizens from voting in local elections, just weeks before voters will decide whether to approve a ballot initiative seeking such a ban.
According to the Spectrum News/Siena College poll, 54% of Democrats say they would oppose "a state constitutional amendment that would prohibit local governments from allowing noncitizens to vote in local elections," while just 43% said they would support it.
On the other side of the political divide, 72% of Republicans said they would support such an amendment, with just 28% saying they would oppose it.
Of that 72%, 65% said they "strongly support" the amendment.
Read more from Fox News' Brandon Gillespie here.
Senate candidate John Fetterman, D-Pa., has removed mentions of Black Lives Matter from his campaign website in the last month, a review of archived webpages showed.
The "issues" page on Fetterman's website currently includes sections on inflation ,criminal justice reform, legalizing cannabis, renewable energy, immigration and several other topics, but doesn't include any section devoted to Black Lives Matter. Archived copies of the page, though, show that as recently as Aug. 22, the same page highlighted Fetterman's commitment to Black Lives Matter.
"John served as mayor of a city that’s more than 80% Black, and has championed the idea that Black lives matter since long before it became a hashtag," the previous version of the campaign website stated under a section titled "Black Lives Matter."
The same line appears to have been on Fetterman's website since February 2021, the month he announced he would run for Senate. Fetterman secured the Democratic nomination for the seat in May, setting up a showdown against Republican nominee Dr. Mehmet Oz in November.
Read more from Fox News' Thomas Catenacci here.
{{#rendered}}Preserving the democracy is the top issue for Democratic voters in yet another battleground state, according to two new polls that also reveal which Arizona candidates are leading in the last six weeks before the midterm elections.
Despite the nation's inflation rate climbing to 8.3% in August, a Marist Poll in Arizona found that preserving democracy was the most concerning issue to 44% of likely Democratic voters in the state, and abortion ranked as the issue of top importance to 26%.
Among the Republican respondents, 50% said that inflation was the most pressing issue, while immigration was most concerning to 24% of likely GOP registered voters.
Read more from Fox News' Aubrie Spady here.
GOP Utah state Senate candidate Linda Paulson, known for her viral campaign ad where she raps her midterm message, wants to drown out the "haters," and says she believes all America needs is "God, family and the Constitution."
"May is my birthday and our daughter Brenda made this rap up, and she performed it in front of our whole family. We loved it. And so I said, ‘Can you do that for my campaign?’" Paulson said about what initially sparked the idea to rap her ad, in an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital.
The unique advertisement was released earlier this month and quickly racked up almost 200,000 views on YouTube, while also going viral on social media platforms.
Read more from Fox News' Aubrie Spady here.
The number of veterans serving in Congress is at its lowest level since WWII, but a pro-military political action committee with a mission to help elect Republicans with military experience to Congress is looking to change that.
Frontline Patriots PAC is seeking "to promote and elect principled, conservative veteran leadership to congress" who have "a deep understanding of courage, conviction, and love of country that only true service can bring," according to the PAC's website.
To date, Frontline Patriots has raised a total of $133,000 and has served as a central repository for resource sharing between members of Congress and their Leadership PACs and WinRed accounts, whose contributions are also directed toward endorsed veteran candidates.
Additionally, the group has issued several endorsements for candidates in House races around the country and boasts a 78% win record, with 20 of the 25 Frontline Patriots endorsed candidates making up a third of all National Republican Congressional Committee "Young Gun" candidates in the 2022 cycle.
Read more: Pro-military group aims to bring stability to Congress by working to elect GOP veterans
{{#rendered}}Republican Pennsylvania Senate nominee Dr. Mehmet Oz says his "diagnosis" to the rising crime plaguing his state places blame squarely on his "radical" Democratic opponent, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, for creating the conditions for criminal activity to prosper.
In an interview this week with Fox News Digital, Oz asserted that instances of violent crime, as well as events like the ransacking of a Wawa gas station by a mob of people over the weekend, were now "normalized," and described such occurrences as a "cancer" to society.
"We've normalized thoughtless, destructive criminal acts. The question you ask in the morning is how many homicides happened last night? It's not, was there a murder? It's crazy that it's become that commonplace. And the lawlessness – and that's what this is about – is like a cancer," he said.
For his sharp approach to crime that has skyrocketed in cities like Philadelphia, which saw a shooting of four high school students on Tuesday, Oz was endorsed by the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police. Furthering what he said in his Monday speech to the group when accepting the endorsement, Oz told Fox News Digital that crime rates were continuing to grow because there weren't enough police to tackle the issue.
Read more from Fox News' Brandon Gillespie here.
The Michigan Republican Party (MIGOP) released an ad Tuesday denouncing Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, D-Mich., for the rise in crime under her watch.
The ad begins with footage of store break-ins and the sound of sirens and gunshots. “Gretchen Whitmer’s Michigan, soft on criminals,” says the narrator, referencing Whitmer’s support for the defund the police movement.
The MIGOP advertisement also provided statistics on the uptick in the state’s crime rates, citing figures that show murders up 30% from 2019, violent crimes up 12.9%, and carjackings up 764%.
It then pivots to the drug problem present in the state stemming from Fentanyl crossing the Southern border, showing footage of Whitmer expressing support for abolishing ICE.
“I’m riding with Biden,” Whitmer says in a recording played in the ad, as a photo of her holding POTUS’s hand flashes across the screen.
“Our neighborhoods deserve to be safe and feel safe in Michigan and the reality is that’s not the case right now,” Gustavo Portela, communications director for MIGOP, told Fox Digital.
“We’re bringing attention to the fact that Gretchen Whitmer has been soft on crime, allowing crime to spike thanks to her support for both the defund the police movement and the defunding ICE movement. The extreme movements support getting rid of the agents at the border working actively to stop illegal drugs like fentanyl from flowing into the country and the defund the police movement threatens to divert police department money that could go into training and recruiting more officers into something else. That’s not what Michigan needs right now or ever," Portela said.
Several Democrats who are engaged in competitive House races have altered their stances on criminal justice provisions they previously championed as the midterm elections approach.
Crime has become an important concern for voters ahead of the November elections, with a poll last week indicating that they believe Republicans are more equipped to handle the issue that is now of more importance to them than abortion.
According to the survey produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates in New York City, the economy (89%), education (77%) and inflation (76%) topped out the issues voters consider "highly important" as midterms loom, but those issues were followed closely by crime at 69%, which beat out abortion at 62%.
In New York's 11th District, Max Rose, a Democrat who represented all of Staten Island and parts of southern Brooklyn for a single term from 2019 to 2021, is seeking to once again represent the district in the House as he looks to defeat the woman who ousted him from office in 2020, incumbent GOP Rep. Nicole Malliotakis.
In 2018, during a candidate questionnaire through the Lambda Independent Democrats of Brooklyn, Rose stated that he supported "federal and state efforts to enact criminal justice reform and end mass incarceration, including sentencing and prison reforms (for example, HR 3356 Prison Reform and Redemption Act), bail reform, and the closure of Rikers Island."
Read more: Democrats in competitive House races flip-flop on criminal justice provisions they once championed
{{#rendered}}A new poll suggests that Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, holds a slim lead over his Republican challenger, J.D. Vance, in the race to represent Ohio in the Senate.
The Spectrum News and Siena College poll, which was released Tuesday and gathered responses from 642 likely Ohio voters, revealed that 46% of respondents would vote for Ryan and 43% of those surveyed would vote for Vance if the election were held today. Nine percent of respondents remained unsure or had no pinion on the race.
As for favorability among the two candidates, 38% of voters surveyed said they hold a favorable view of Ryan and 32% said the same for Vance just six weeks out from election day.
The poll also revealed that residents in Ohio have a largely unfavorable view of President Biden and his performance in the White House.
Read more: Democrat Tim Ryan holds slight edge over J.D. Vance in Ohio Senate race: poll
FIRST ON FOX: Gov. Kristi Noem, R-S.D., who is seeking re-election in the midterm election this November, announced that she will eliminate the sales tax on all grocery purchases in South Dakota, the governor's office told Fox News Digital."
I have seen families across South Dakota struggling to make ends meet with rising inflation because of President Biden’s policies. His failed liberal agenda has caused the cost of food to skyrocket, and family budgets are being stretched thin," said Noem while announcing the new tax cut in Rapid City, South Dakota, Wednesday.
"This permanent tax cut will put hundreds of dollars in the pockets of the average South Dakota family," Noem said.
Read more from Fox News' Aubrie Spady here.
On Wednesday, Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced his endorsement for Illinois Senate candidate Kathy Salvi, the GOP nominee running against incumbent Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill.
“Kathy Salvi is the type of leader we need in Washington and I am looking forward to working with her and her campaign to help bring a strong victory for the people of Illinois on Election Day,” Pompeo tweeted.
“We need strong leaders in the U.S. Senate whose guiding principle is to ensure that our nation’s freedoms are preserved and our interests are promoted around the world,” he wrote in a statement alongside the tweet.
{{#rendered}}South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem is planning to announce “a major tax cut for South Dakota families," a source familiar with Noem's re-election campaign exclusively told Fox News Digital.
The potential tax cut from Noem, who helped pass the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act during her time in Congress, would come after South Dakota reportedly ended fiscal year ’22 with a surplus of $111.5 million.
The Republican Governor will be back on the ballot this fall, where she will take on Democratic challenger Jamie Smith in her bid for re-election.
FIRST ON FOX: Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina heads back to Iowa in a week and a half to headline a fundraising event for the state Republican Party.
But the trip to the state whose caucuses for half a century have kicked off the presidential nominating calendar will spark more speculation that Scott, a rising star in the GOP and the only Black Republican in the Senate, is mulling a potential White House run in 2024.
Scott will headline an event with Iowa GOP chair Jeff Kaufmann on Oct. 8 in Sioux Center, in the solidly red northwestern corner of the Hawkeye State. Word of the event was shared first with Fox News on Wednesday.
A new ad from Kansas gubernatorial candidate Derek Schmidt, shared first with Fox News Digital, goes after Democratic incumbent Gov. Laura Kelly for her support of school lockdowns amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“I’m a mom of five. The school lockdowns were hard on my children, and every Kansas student," Wichita, Kansas, resident Natalie Ellis says in Schmidt's new ad.
“When Laura Kelly calls herself the ‘education governor’ it makes me angry. Kelly’s lockdowns and mandates did more damage to children than any governor in Kansas history."
“That’s why I’m voting for Derek Schmidt. Derek will fully fund our schools, keep kids in the classroom, and empower parents so every student can get the education they deserve. Derek Schmidt listens to us," Ellis says.
Several studies have shown the remote learning implemented in an attempt to stop the spread of COVID-19 has set students back, and Schmidt's campaign is betting that voters will tie Kelly to the negative effects.
During her campaign, Kelly has said she makes "no apologies" for implementing the school measures.
“We in Kansas had to take a look at what do we know, what do we have, and what we need to do to make sure we keep our people safe,” Kelly said earlier in September, touting she was the first governor to close schools to in-person learning for an entire year.
“So, when I look at what we did, I know everybody thinks about the sort of dramatic decision to close our schools and to be the first governor to close them for the entire year. I’ll make no apologies for that.”
Schmidt has committed to signing a Parents Bill of Rights which Kelly vetoed, and pledged to constitutionally fund schools to keep students in the classroom.
“Nothing is more important than our kids, and we need to put kids and parents first,” Schmidt said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “We must constitutionally fund our schools. But fully funding schools doesn’t work if you lock the students out of them. It doesn’t work if you lock the parents out of them either.”
{{#rendered}}
Republican Indiana congressional candidate Jennifer-Ruth Green is announcing a new ad highlighting her military service, as well as her commitment to giving back to the community.
In the ad, titled "Stand on My Shoulders," Green pays tribute to the Tuskegee Airmen, whose inspiration she says played a significant role in the direction of her life.
"If you don't stand on our shoulders, who will? Lieutenant Colonel Lee Archer, the original Tuskegee Airman, challenged me with that question when I was a junior at the Air Force Academy years ago. That question changed the course of my life," Green says in the ad.
"The Tuskegee Airmen of World War Two fought and gave their lives for our country and for the cause of freedom. Even though many didn't think they were qualified or capable to do so. But Lieutenant Colonel Lee Archer and the Tuskegee Airmen were undeterred. Their sacrifice and bravery inspired a nation, and countless future generations," she says.
"That single question from Colonel Archer still inspires me today. It's one of the reasons I founded an aviation non-profit: To transform the lives of young people, encouraging them to dream big, do more and never quit; because that's what public service is, giving back to the community, and being a voice for people who feel like politicians have consistently let them down," she ads.
The ad is part of a six-figure digital buy and will begin airing this week.
Fox News' Power Rankings has rated the race in Indiana's 1st Congressional District as a "tossup."
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia says he strongly supports the Atlanta Braves keeping their name.
"The Braves are the Braves. They need to keep chopping," Kemp emphasized on Tuesday when asked if Major League Baseball’s World Series champions should change their name as part of the ongoing argument over the longtime use of Native American names in professional and collegiate sports.
The Braves’ name and the team’s accompanying tomahawk logo have long come under criticism as offensive to Native Americans. For decades during baseball games, Braves fans have performed a tomahawk chop with their arms while chanting a battle cry.
The controversy was back in the national spotlight on Monday, as the world champions visited with President Biden at the White House. While President Biden made no mention of the controversy as he greeted the Braves, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters "we believe it’s important to have this conversation. Native American and Indigenous voices, they should be at the center of the conversation."
Kemp took aim at the Biden administration, charging that "for them [the Braves] to be celebrated at the White House yesterday and then the president’s administration talk about changing the name is ridiculous. The Braves have a great repour with the Native Indian community in the state. They’ve actually been in the governor’s office. We’ve met with them before… we don’t need the cancel culture that this White House has had."
Read more from Fox News' Paul Steinhauser here.
Coverage for this event has ended.