Republican Senate candidate Matt Bevin wants to make sure that Kentucky voters see Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) decked out in Duke gear when they sit down Friday night to watch Louisville play Kentucky in the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA tournament.
“March Madness in Kentucky,” Bevin said in the ad, standing next to an image of McConnell wearing a Duke basketball jersey. “Commitment, courage — you gotta love it, even if your team is already out of the tournament.”
Bevin was referencing an ad McConnell’s re-election campaign released Tuesday that accidentally included a clip of the Duke basketball team celebrating its 2010 NCAA championship (both Duke and the University of Kentucky wear white and blue uniforms). The campaign pulled the ad and replaced it with a new version, which later had to be taken down when the University of Kentucky sent the campaign a cease-and-desist letter for including footage of a current student-athlete in the ad.
Bevin’s $40,000 ad buy was slated to air during the Louisville vs. Kentucky game in both the Louisville and Lexington media markets, according to WFPL. Politico’s Morning Score noted that two pro-McConnell groups will also air ads during the highly anticipated game.
McConnell campaign spokeswoman Allison Moore responded to Bevin’s “mudslinging” ad in a statement, referencing a report that Bevin inflated his educational background.
“Given Bailout Bevin’s undying commitment to a fictional account of himself and Senator McConnell, we actually expected this ad to be about the time he won a national championship back in the 80s as a point guard for the MIT Engineers,” Moore said in the statement. “Matt Bailout Bevin is not who he says he is, and he’s certainly not a Kentucky conservative.”
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This post has been updated.
