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HOP Sen. Dean Heller
- The group Tax March is buying $300,000 worth of ads in Nevada to attack the new GOP tax law.
- Nevada is home to Republicans' most vulnerable senator in the 2018 midterms, Dean Heller.
- The ad will highlight the relative benefits the new law gives to wealthier Americans.
A liberal group dedicated to pushing back against the new Republican tax law is launching a new ad that is an indirect attack on Nevada GOP Sen. Dean Heller.
The ad from the group Tax March does not mention Heller by name, but instead highlights some of the ways the group thinks the newly implemented Republican tax law falls short for average Americans.
But Heller is considered the most vulnerable GOP senator up for re-election in 2018 and is likely to face a tough race against Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen.
Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton won the state in 2016 by 2.4 percentage points, and Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto also won that year by the same margin. Given expectations of a strong showing from Democrats nationwide, Heller's seat appears to be in jeopardy.
Tax March said the $300,000 ad buy will run in the Las Vegas market, the largest media market in Nevada that covers close to a quarter of the state's population.
According to Nicole Gill, the executive director of Tax March, the ad will highlight the relative benefits that the tax law gives to wealthy Americans in contrast to the benefits for the middle class.
"Nevadans deserve to know that this tax law was not written to help them," Gill said in a statement. "Instead, the law lines the pockets of the wealthiest Americans while adding $1.9 trillion to the national debt, which threatens Medicare and Social Security, and putting the financial security of the middle-class at risk."
The ad also highlights research from the Tax Policy Center (TPC) that showed that 83% of the overall benefit in 2028 will go to the top 1% of income earners. The TPC also found that in 2027, 53.4% of all Americans will see an increase in their tax bill compared to their bill if the law didn't go into effect.
While this is true, the TPC study also points out that the dramatic shift won't happen until 2027 after the law's individual tax cuts expire.
Prior to the expiration, the TPC found 80.4% of Americans will receive a tax cut in 2018, with just 4.8% getting an increase. Also in 2018, 20.5% of the benefit from the law will go to the top 1% while people making between $49,000 and $86,000 this year would receive 11.2% of the benefit.
Republican have promised to prevent this outcome by extending the individual tax cuts, but so far have not introduced legislation to do so.
While the ad doesn't mention any politician by name, the connection to Heller - who voted for the bill and is basing part of his re-election message on the law - is clear.
"Politicians who voted for the tax bill gave their wealthy donors a huge raise at the expense of working families from coast to coast," Gill said.
Tax March and its companion group Not One Penny plan to roll out similar messaging across the US in anticipation of the 2018 midterms.
By contrast, Republicans across the country are making the tax law a key part of their 2018 message, touting the tax cuts for middle class Americans this year and new bonuses given to workers due to the tax law.
In terms of public perception, it appears the GOP is losing the image battle so far. Recent polling showed that the majority of Americans disapprove of the tax bill, and few have noticed a substantial financial benefit from the bill.