Devin Nunes’ Democratic opponent raised $450K during impeachment. Now he’s launching ads
A Fresno Democrat challenging Rep. Devin Nunes launched a five-figure advertising campaign Monday that highlights a set of phone calls between Nunes and allies of President Donald Trump who are at the center of his impeachment inquiry.
The digital advertising campaign is the first significant paid media attack from a Democrat against Nunes in his district this election cycle.
It comes from Phil Arballo, whose national following and campaign war chest swelled last month as Nunes defended Trump at high-profile impeaching hearings.
Arballo has raised nearly $450,000 in his bid to defeat Nunes since the impeachment hearings began in mid-November from about 18,000 donors, according to campaign spokesman Andrew Feldman. The average donation was $24.68.
Before impeachment, the campaign had raised a total of about $380,000 over nearly four months, according to Federal Election Commission records
“This is not going to stop,” Arballo said Sunday. “And (Nunes) is not going to stop putting himself in situations that put him in the limelight. Which we know benefits him as well, which is good for him but bad for us in the district.”
Nunes, R-Tulare, remains a well-funded incumbent, with $7 million in cash on hand as of the end of the third quarter, according to the Federal Election Commission.
Democrat Bobby Bliatout is also challenging Nunes. Bliatout is expected to face Arballo in California’s March 3 primary, which advances the top two vote-getters to the November general election regardless of party affiliation.
Nunes’ doesn’t remember calls
Arballo’s ads focus on Nunes’ calls with Lev Parnas – the now-indicted business associate of Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, who was reportedly working with Giuliani in pressuring Ukraine to launch investigations that would benefit Trump’s re-election.
The impeachment inquiry centers on allegations that Trump withheld military assistance and a coveted White House meeting from Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to pressure the country to open the investigations. Trump wanted investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden’s son’s appointment to the board of directors of a Ukrainian energy company, and into a theory that Ukrainian officials sought to influence the 2016 election.
Parnas’ lawyer has accused Nunes of also helping in the plot to pressure Ukraine. Call logs published by the House Intelligence Committee as part of an impeachment report also reveal Nunes having phone conversations with Giuliani and Parnas in April.
Nunes has said on Fox News that he doesn’t remember the conversations involving Ukraine and said he does not remember if he ever spoke to Parnas. His office did not respond to a request for comment from McClatchy.
While attending a Republican fundraiser in the Lotte New York Palace in New York City on Saturday, Nunes refused to answer questions about those issues from an Intercept reporter, and had the reporter escorted out of the building by U.S. Capitol Police.
Nunes posted a picture of the reporter on Twitter, saying, “this guy stalked me in hotel lobby.”
Arballo’s ad buy targets 20,000 swing voters in the district on Facebook. The campaign also plans to share the ad organically through Twitter, since the platform does not support political ads.
What the ads say
The shorter of the two at 21 seconds, titled “Nunes Got Caught,” tells the viewer that the ad is a “reenactment,” but says it is “disturbingly close to what actually happened.”
It then shows a fake text message window between Parnas and Nunes, in which Nunes says “I (heart emoji) crimes” multiple times while Parnas asks if he wants dirt on former Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
It also shows a cow mooing, a reference to Nunes filing a defamation lawsuit against an anonymous Twitter user who manages a parody account known as “Devin Nunes’ Cow.” The anonymous writer has mocked Nunes, supported Arballo and encouraged its Twitter followers to donate to Arballo’s campaign. The ad ends saying, “Nunes is bad. Let’s remove him.”
Arballo acknowledged Nunes has not been convicted of a crime. Arballo said Nunes was “definitely involved in unethical activity.”
“We know he was involved in this scandal in ways he did not disclose,” Arballo said. “We know he was sitting up on that dais when he had communications with Giuliani and Parnas as early as April.”
The second ad, at 1 minute and 38 seconds called “The Real Devin Nunes,” runs through news coverage of Nunes’ actions during the impeachment inquiry and the allegations of his role in speaking with Parnas and Giuliani.
It then turns to the 2020 election. Arballo in the ad says that while Nunes won his 2016 election by 35 points, Nunes then won by 5 points in 2018, after he closely allied himself to Trump. It shows Arballo on MSNBC saying Nunes is a “career politician who has lost sight of his job.”
Nunes is one of Trump’s fiercest defenders. As chairman of the House Intelligence Committee during the first two years of the Trump administration, Nunes argued that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the 2016 election was the result of a “Russia hoax” carried out by anti-Trump bureaucrats in U.S. intelligence agencies.
That stance made him a national figure with a reputation that drew a serious challenge from Democrat Andrew Janz, who raised $9 million for the race. Nunes raised $12 million in that election and defeated Janz by five percentage points in a banner year for Democrats in House elections.
But Arballo thinks it will go differently for him, citing Democratic electoral advantages in 2020, such as an earlier primary and it being a presidential election year when Democrats typically vote in larger numbers.
After the primary, “I’ve got eight whole months of going right after Devin and making sure people know there’s an alternative to him,” Arballo said.
This story was originally published December 9, 2019 at 5:00 AM.
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