Republicans ran a false ad about Sen. Tammy Baldwin. It got taken down.

A Republican-funded ad against out Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) has been taken down for false statements about the senator’s record on healthcare. Baldwin is up for reelection this year against Republican Eric Hovde.

The advertisement claimed that Baldwin had “cut Medicare funding and used that money to subsidize electric vehicles.”

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“After I ran for the county board in 1986 as an out lesbian, there was no going back,” she said.

The advertisement was likely referring to when Baldwin voted for the Inflation Reduction Act, which cut the cost of insulin and other drugs and funded clean energy initiatives.

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“As Restoration PAC well knows, Senator Baldwin has never voted to cut Medicare. This false and misleading advertisement should be pulled from your network immediately,” said attorneys from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

The Restoration PAC, which stands by its initial advertisement, is funded by megadonor Richard Uihlein, who owns the packaging company Uline alongside his wife. Uihlein has donated millions to Republicans across the country.

The initial advertisement slot was purchased for $3 million and was sent out to every Wisconsin media market.

OnMedia, one of the companies that ran the ad, took it down shortly after. An alternative has begun to air, claiming that Baldwin voted to “use Medicare money for electric vehicle subsidies, instead of seniors.”

Viamedia, another advertising company, had also been running the ad and had pulled it.

“Tammy’s record is clear: she’ll always protect Medicare, always stand up for seniors, and fight for every Wisconsinite and their families, no matter their age or ZIP code,” said Jackie Rosa, a spokesperson for Baldwin’s campaign.

Rosa condemns the second ad as also containing misinformation.

One of the cornerstones of Baldwin’s campaign has been her commitment to ending the fentanyl crisis, introducing legislation like the Comprehensive Addiction Resources Emergency (CARE) Act, which would expand funding in federal, state, local, and tribal governments for addiction treatment.

The act would distribute to states $125 billion in funding for a period of 10 years, in accordance with each state’s overdose rate. Much of the funding would go to biomedical research, additional training for health professionals, and health surveillance.

The money given to tribal governments would fund epidemiology centers, universities, and non-profits. It would also expand drug treatment medicine, such as Naloxone.

“I think so many of our approaches thus far have been really focused on just on piece of the larger challenge. We haven’t sufficient resources into prevention,” Baldwin said in a statement. “Recovery after treatment is a lifelong process.”

She has run campaign advertisements where she expressed her support for families affected by the fentanyl crisis. One such ad described the experiences of a grieving mother who lost her son to the drug, with Baldwin offering support to her.

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