Red Heat

Giffords PAC, the pro–gun control organization founded by former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.), released two new ads as part of a $10 million campaign in battleground House races ahead of the November elections, The Bulwark can exclusively report. The campaign—an unusually large intervention from an independent PAC—targets districts at the edges of Democrats’ hopes for how far a blue wave this November might carry them.

In a $1 million campaign in Michigan’s 10th Congressional District, the PAC’s ad elevates Christina Hines, the Democratic nominee.

“I investigated cold cases that Christina Hines prosecuted: gun traffickers, domestic abusers, and murderers. I was always relieved when prosecutor Christina Hines was assigned to a case,” a retired Michigan state trooper says in the ad. “She not only listened to me, she heard me. Christina Hines is a great partner to law enforcement. She’s tough, she’s honest, and I trust her.”

In Florida’s 13th district, where Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) is fighting for re-election against Democrat Leela Gray, the PAC’s $800,000 campaign about Luna’s connections to the gun lobby will soon fill the airwaves.

“The corporate gun lobby loves Anna Paulina Luna. And why shouldn’t they?” says the ad’s narrator.

They give her thousands of dollars, then she votes their way. Luna voted to weaken gun laws, making it easier for criminals and domestic abusers to get access to guns. She even voted to cut millions from law enforcement—putting our police and families at risk. The gun lobby can always count on Anna Paulina Luna. But Florida families can’t.

In a recent interview with Roger Stone, Luna complained about Giffords’s previous ads in her district and insinuated that school shootings are a consequence less of free access to firearms than of free access to anxiety and depression medications.

“I think that the attack is pretty egregious,” Luna said. “School shootings, no one wants to talk about the fact that a lot of these shooters—and a lot of the trans shooters also, too—are on SSRIs.” She then said the fact that the pharmaceutical companies that manufacture SSRIs are not “held liable for what happens after the fact . . . has to change.”

These two races are interesting targets for Giffords because they aren’t the obvious high-profile races that other Democrats typically designate as most crucial for retaking the House majority. The seat in Michigan’s 10th district, now an open race, has been held by a Republican in recent years while Luna’s seat is rated as “lean Republican” according to the Cook Political Report, indicating Giffords PAC is sending its resources to places national Democrats have been too thinly stretched to meaningfully contest in recent election cycles.

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