Politico: “Over the last 30 days, close to 100 Republican-funded TV spots casting Hillary Clinton, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi — or both — as villains have aired more than 34,000 times… In three battleground Senate races alone — Indiana, Missouri and West Virginia — ads featuring Pelosi or Clinton blanketed TV screens, running more than 1,100 times in each state.”

“All told, Republican campaigns or affiliated groups sunk $28.4 million into the Clinton and Pelosi messaging over the last month.”

Politico: “Attacks ads have always been a staple of campaign season. But Republicans have twisted facts in some ads to an extraordinary degree as they fight to save their House majority, weaving narratives about Democratic candidates that are misleading at best — or blatantly false at worst.”

“In several ads, military vets — who count as some of Democrats’ best recruits to defeat sitting Republicans this year — have had their patriotism called into question.”

“Democrats say the spots, aired mostly by the outside GOP super PAC Congressional Leadership Fund and the National Republican Congressional Committee, smack of desperation. In some cases, local Republicans, religious leaders and newspaper editorial boards have have denounced the attacks.”

“My siblings who chose to film ads against me are all liberal Democrats who hate President Trump. These disgruntled Hillary supporters are related by blood to me but like leftists everywhere, they put political ideology before family. Stalin would be proud.”

— Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), on Twitter, responding to his six siblings featured in an advertisement for his Democratic opponent.

McClatchy: “Since the president’s election, Democratic Party leaders have vowed to emphasize pocketbook issues, convinced that an economic focus was necessary to win over the most voters in November. But Trump has made it difficult, using his bully pulpit — and the all-consuming attention he commands in the media — to compel Democrats to discuss anything but the economy, from kneeling NFL players to special counsel Bob Mueller’s investigation.”

“Now, however, Democrats say the election gives their candidates and allied groups a chance to force the conversation back to economic issues by paying for messages delivered directly to voters.”

“Democrats think an economic message best unites their liberal base and many of the white working-class voters who backed the president in 2016. Impressions of Trump are already hardened, and trying to change how voters regard the president or how congressional Republicans treat him is a difficult effort even if backed by tens of millions of dollars in spending.”

First Read: “Facing a challenging political environment, a Republican president whose approval rating is around 40 percent and an expanding battleground map for control of the House, Republicans are spending their resources — now — on trying to disqualify Democratic candidates.”

Just yesterday, the Congressional Leadership Fund released five different ads hitting Democrats:

• In CA-39 against Gil Cisneros (for investing in companies that do business with Iran)
• In IL-6 against Sean Casten (hitting his business record)
• In ME-2 against Jared Golden (on taxes)
• In NJ-3 against Andy Kim (tying him to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi)
• And in WI-1 against Randy Bryce (for being arrested nine times)

David Wasserman: “Only hope for House Republicans to save majority? Disqualify Democratic nominees with nuclear opposition and slug it out race-by-race starting in August and September. And so it begins.”

“Republicans unveiled an ad campaign this week that seemed to turn back the clock a few decades — by trying to turn the word ‘liberal’ into the kind of insult it was 25 years ago,” the Washington Post reports.

“This is a slight variation on what has been a steadily consistent theme from CLF: a steady attack on Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) as the potential next House speaker should Democrats win back the majority.”

“But the earlier ads focused almost exclusively on Pelosi, assuming the viewer already knew what she stood for and why they disliked her. In this week’s trio of ads, however, Pelosi is a bit character, appearing on screen for just four or five seconds in the 90 seconds of airtime.”