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Heitkamp Highlights Family Ties in First TV Ad

North Dakota Democrat is among the most vulnerable senators

North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp is running for re-election in a state President Donald Trump carried by 36 points. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call file photo)
North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp is running for re-election in a state President Donald Trump carried by 36 points. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call file photo)

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp is highlighting her family in her first television ad of the 2018 election cycle. The North Dakota Democrat is looking to stress her ties to the state as she bids for a second term.

Heitkamp is one of the most vulnerable Senate Democrats up for re-election this year, running in a state President Donald Trump carried by 36 points in 2016. Watch: Will the Chambers Flip? Redditors Want to Know

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The 60-second ad, provided first to Roll Call, will run on television and digital platforms, and air statewide on broadcast. Heitkamp’s campaign is putting six figures behind the television spot, and five figures behind the digital ad.

Heidi Heitkamp is North Dakota through and through,” her campaign manager Libby Schneider said in a statement. “Raised in Mantador — a town with fewer than 100 people — Heidi brings North Dakota values to the Senate every single day. That’s what this campaign is about.”

Her first television spot of the cycle is a repurposed a digital ad from 2012 that featured four of her sisters and her brother Joel, a radio talk show host in North Dakota. The ad was edited to reflect that she is now running as the incumbent.

In the ad, the siblings talk directly to the camera about their sister. They discuss her main chore growing up in a house with seven children: laundry.

“This is not good,” Heitkamp jokes at the start of the ad. Her siblings recall her reading instead of doing laundry, and not folding the clothes, before going on to praise her.

“She has the art of compromise,” her sister Holly says.

Heitkamp will likely face GOP Rep. Kevin Cramer in November. Cramer initially said he would not challenge the first-term senator, but after encouragement from Trump and others, he decided to jump in the race.

Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales rates the race a Toss-up.

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