After she handled her fellow Republican candidates at the Utah convention back in April, Mia Love is receiving a substantial boost from her party to aide her attempt to oust Democrat Congressman Jim Matheson in the newly created 4th Congressional District.
Many Republicans have been vocal in their support for Mia Love, and now Republican leadership is putting their money where their mouths are. The National Republican Congressional Committee has reserved nearly $1 million in airtime for ads leading up to November
The buy, reserved this week, marks the NRCC’s first foray into the fall advertisement air war. The Congressional campaign committees have reserved more than $100 million in television time for an air war that is shaping up as among the earliest and most competitive in recent history.
Republican leadership isn’t stopping there. A slew of notable Republicans, including Paul Ryan, are heading out to Park City, Utah next week to participate in a fundraising event for Love.
The event, set for Friday at the clubhouse at Glenwild, is expected to draw a roster of top-level state Republicans to raise money for Mia Love, the candidate attempting to unseat Rep. Jim Matheson in the state’s 4th Congressional District.Love’s campaign said others who might be in attendance include Gov. Gary Herbert, Sen. Orrin Hatch, Sen. Mike Lee, Rep. Rob Bishop and Rep. Jason Chaffetz. The roster represents the hierarchy of Utah politics, and it would be rare for the Park City area to host such a gathering of Republican luminaries.
There haven’t been any new polls released since Love won the nomination so it isn’t clear whether this support will translate into hard votes come November, but the Democrats must be feeling far more pressure than they did when Matheson first made it known that he would be seeking another term in Congress. Back in December, Utah Democratic Party Chairman Jim Dabakis called Matheson a “great fix” for the 4th District. “It was very practical. This was very much a Jim Matheson thing to do. Jim’s going to run away with it,” he said.
I doubt that today, Democrats are feeling precisely those same sentiments. The steps Republicans are taking show that they believe Love can win, but that we can be sure it will take significant time, effort, and resources to unseat the incumbent.
You can donate to Mia Love here, and follow her on Twitter here.
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