A Nebraska Senate Ad Lets One Mechanic Throw a Wrench at Another

Deb Fischer, the Republican incumbent, faces a stiff challenge from a union leader, Dan Osborn, running as an independent. Her latest ad calls him a “Democrat in disguise.”

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A fund-raising PAC supporting Senator Deb Fischer, Republican of Nebraska, has been running this 30-second ad attacking her independent opponent, Dan Osborn, on television stations across the state since Wednesday at a cost of more than $372,000 so far, according to the Fischer campaign.

Here’s a look at the ad, its accuracy and its major takeaway.

On the Screen

A balding voter in a heavy flannel shirt, identified as “Shawn” from Bennington, Neb., addresses the camera from inside a garage. He keeps narrating as the camera zooms in on him tinkering under the hood of a car, wiping his hands with a rag and then, outside in the sun, looking grimly into the distance.

The ad skitters through common Republican attack themes on a border supposedly out of control and foreign workers stealing jobs. Over a picture of Mr. Osborn and the headline “Amnesty for Illegal Aliens,” video clips from the air show clusters of people laden with backpacks crossing a river. The inside of a warehouse is shown as the lights turn out, under the headline “American Jobs to Foreign Workers.” And an older man is shown unhappily examining paperwork under the headline “Social Security to Illegals.”

Shawn then returns, sharing the screen with a big subtitle — “Same Old Democrat B.S.” — before Ms. Fisher makes her only appearance, in the garage with Shawn, as a QR code pops up to help voters donate to her campaign.

The Script

narrator

“Dan Osborn is a Democrat in disguise. Kamala’s inflation is damn near costing me everything. But Dan Osborn is siding with them, not us. Osborn supports amnesty for illegal aliens, and wants to give our jobs away to foreign workers. Osborn even said he’ll give them our Social Security, too. Dan Osborn: same old Democrat B.S., just a different D.C. puppet.”

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