Republican Kelly Loeffler is leaning on one of her greatest assets and most glaring liabilities to turn around her campaign: her money.
The Georgia senator, facing declining poll numbers and ongoing scrutiny over controversial stock trades, this week launched a $4 million ad campaign highlighting ways she’s used her wealth for Covid aid efforts in her state. Those include donating her salary, deploying her private plane to help transport stranded cruise ship passengers and making a $1 million personal donation to a relief organization, along with her support of the Senate's legislative responses.
The trio of TV ads, by far the largest paid media from her or any other candidates in the race, comes after weeks of criticism and attacks that badly damaged her nascent campaign.
With the economy in free fall and millions out of work, Loeffler's wealth could be an albatross — few candidates advertise their use of private planes. But Loeffler has already used her business success and earning power as a key part of her backstory in her first-ever political campaign, and isn't shying away from deploying her financial advantage at a critical moment.
She’s unlikely to quell the criticism from opponents in both parties that erupted over her stock trades. But allies and supporters of the senator's campaign had been eager for her to go on offense and end a cycle of negative attention spotlighting the relatively unknown lawmaker. And Loeffler, who has already loaned $10 million to her own campaign and has pledged to spend more, has vast resources available to try to push her message.
Loeffler insists there was nothing wrong with her stock transactions and maintains strong support from Senate Republicans as well as top GOP officials in the state. But the freshman senator is also facing an insurgent challenge from Rep. Doug Collins, a close Trump ally who served as the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee during the president’s impeachment trial, just four months into her term.
Loeffler’s stocks trades, made after a January classified briefing on the coronavirus, are only deepening the GOP split over the Senate race.
“Are people asking questions about it? Sure. Are people saying she’s not qualified for the Senate because of that? Absolutely not,” said former Georgia Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss, who supports Loeffler. “That’s not even a part of the discussion that I’ve heard.”
“If you’re explaining you’re losing,” countered Georgia House Speaker David Ralston, a Republican who is friends with Collins but has not officially endorsed him. “There were a lot of coincidences in her trading and it could not have come at a worse time obviously with the economy hitting a standstill here in the state. The people I talk to are very concerned about it.”
The November special election is an all-party contest and includes nearly two dozen Republican and Democratic candidates. The race goes to a January 2021 runoff if no candidate receives a majority of the vote. Rev. Raphael Warnock, senior pastor of the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, who has the backing of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, is considered the Democratic frontrunner.
Loeffler has a long way to go to shift the race's trajectory. A recent poll from the GOP firm Cygnal, conducted on behalf of state House Republicans and obtained by POLITICO, has Collins leading the race at 29 percent, with Loeffler well behind at 11 percent, alongside Warnock and Democrat Matt Lieberman, former Sen. Joe Lieberman’s son. The poll also found Loeffler’s image well underwater, with just 20 percent of voters viewing her favorably, while 47 percent viewed her unfavorably. Collins’ favorability numbers were better, though he remained unknown by a large segment of voters.
Loeffler’s three new TV ads attempt to link her with Trump and brush off criticism over her stock trades, with a narrator in one ad calling them “liberal lies.”
"The liberals unfairly target President Trump every day, just like they're unfairly targeting conservative Kelly Loeffler. But they're both standing strong," a narrator says in one of the ads, which hit airwaves Tuesday.
"During times of crisis, people want servant leaders — not politicians — to solve tough situations and deliver results, and that’s exactly what Kelly has done since Day One of this pandemic,” said Stephen Lawson, a spokesman for her campaign.
"In the months to come, Sen. Loeffler as a political outsider and conservative businesswoman will use her experience from the private sector to help reignite our economy and get Georgians back to work," he added.
Republican allies were glad to see Loeffler on air to defend herself, though some privately questioned the tactic of focusing on her individual wealth and coronavirus response rather than the Senate’s legislative relief packages. Meanwhile, Collins’ campaign used the new ads as a chance to continue hammering home his chief attack of Loeffler.
“It’s the Robin Hood argument: ‘Yeah, I stole from your retirement accounts with my insider trading, but I’m spending it on ads showing me being philanthropic,’” said Dan McLagan, a spokesman for Collins.
Democrats are giddy at any signs of division among the GOP. Rachel Irwin, a spokeswoman for Senate Majority PAC, the top Democratic outside group, said the intra-party fight “shows just how broken their party is and is the perfect example of ‘Republicans in disarray’ that could cost them this open seat.’
Terrence Clark, a spokesman for Warnock's campaign, called the ads an effort to "fool Georgians."
"While folks across our state were sheltering in place, she was busy sheltering her investments,” Clark said. “No amount of zeros will change that."
Loeffler came under fire in March for selling off millions of dollars in stocks after she and other senators received a classified briefing on the pandemic. She’s defended herself by saying she used a third party adviser and took her defense even further in April, when she vowed to liquidate all of her individual stock holdings to put an end to the attacks. But some GOP operatives acknowledge she could have acted sooner to quell the ongoing scrutiny.
Loeffler also filed additional disclosures this month.
Prior to becoming a senator, Loeffler was chief executive of Bakkt, a financial services firm. She is married to Jeffrey Sprecher, chief executive of the Intercontinental Exchange and chairman of the New York Stock Exchange. Loeffler committed to spending $20 million on her campaign, and could fund it at a much higher level, which gives her an edge over Collins, who had $2.2 million in the bank at the end of April.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp appointed Loeffler to the Senate in December to replace Johnny Isakson, who retired for health reasons. But even that process drew criticism. While Kemp established an online application process for the role, Loeffler applied at the last minute — prompting accusations that the process was rigged.
Kemp also chose Loeffler despite a push from President Donald Trump to appoint Collins instead. Now her allies are hoping that the president stays neutral in the state. Loeffer’s allies argue that she can attract voters from the Atlanta suburbs, not only an asset for her reelection campaign but also a benefit for Kemp, who is up for re-election in 2022. And her candidacy could also quell criticism that the GOP doesn’t have enough women in Congress.
Even though Collins is expected to continue to harangue Loeffler over the stocks issue, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and top officials in the state are so far sticking with her.
“She has support of all the powers that be in the state as well as outside the state on a national level,” Chambliss said. "She’s voted the way that a majority of Georgians think, she’s dealt with the issues and put herself out front on the issues that Georgians care about. I would say she’s in a good position.”
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