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Senator Bob Casey, Democrat of Pennsylvania, distances himself from the Biden administration and highlights his support of certain Trump administration policies in a new TV campaign ad that aired in parts of the state on Friday, signaling a last-minute appeal to the former president’s supporters in a crucial battleground state.
In the ad, two voters — a married couple made up of a Republican and a Democrat in Old Forge, Pa. — praise Mr. Casey as an independent lawmaker, saying that he “bucked Biden to protect fracking and he sided with Trump to end NAFTA and put tariffs on China.”
The spot aired nearly 100 times in Pennsylvania on Friday, frequently in heavily Republican areas such as Johnstown and Altoona, according to data provided by the tracking firm AdImpact.
The Trump campaign quickly seized on Mr. Casey’s references to Mr. Trump in the commercial, attacking the senator on social media for “desperately trying to embrace President Trump” and saying he was “a shill for Kamala’s deranged, radical left agenda.”
An official with Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign in Pennsylvania said that Ms. Harris supports fracking, and that the ad was not an indication that Mr. Casey was separating himself from the vice president. When asked if Mr. Casey’s campaign had informed the Harris campaign about the ad before it aired, the official said that he would not discuss internal communications between the two campaigns.
Maddy McDaniel, a spokeswoman for Mr. Casey, said that the senator “always does what’s right for Pennsylvania, regardless of party,” and that “he stands with Pennsylvanians and doesn’t care what any politician has to say about it.”
Mr. Casey had a reputation early in his Senate career as a low-key moderate, but he gained prominence for his resistance to many of former President Donald J. Trump’s policies. He has also moved considerably to the left over the nearly 18 years he has been in the Senate — becoming more supportive of gun control measures and bills aimed at ensuring access to abortion.
Another Democratic senator running for re-election — Senator Tammy Baldwin, in the battleground state of Wisconsin — also aired an ad in her state’s major cities on Friday that portrayed her as working equally with Mr. Trump and President Biden on policies promoting American manufacturing. The ad says that Ms. Baldwin “got President Trump to sign her Made in America bill, then she got President Biden to make it permanent.”
The ads were the latest indication that both senators are tacking to the center as their races tighten. Mr. Casey sailed to re-election in 2018, defeating his Republican opponent by 13 points. A Times poll last week showed Mr. Casey leading David McCormick, a Republican businessman, by five points. Polling has shown Ms. Baldwin’s lead over her Republican opponent, Eric Hovde, a banking executive, to be shrinking in recent weeks.
Incumbent lawmakers and other candidates often highlight their efforts to reach across the aisle on issues that matter most to their constituents. Mr. Casey’s opponent, Mr. McCormick, for example posted a picture on social media of him shaking hands with Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, at a police conference after the first assassination attempt against Mr. Trump earlier this year.
But Mr. Biden, Ms. Harris and other top Democrats have spent years presenting Mr. Trump as a singular threat to American democracy while some of their Senate colleagues are amplifying their efforts to cooperate with Mr. Trump.
At least one of the claims in the ads is somewhat misleading, when it says he “bucked Biden to protect fracking and sided with Trump to end NAFTA.”
Mr. Biden took no actions against fracking in Pennsylvania.
Mr. Casey had raised “concerns about the long-term impacts” of Mr. Biden’s decision this year to pause the permitting process for new liquefied natural gas export terminals. But that order did not address fracking. Pennsylvania is a leading state producing natural gas through fracking, but has no terminals to export liquefied natural gas.
Ms McDaniel, Mr. Casey’s spokeswoman, said in a statement that “Bob Casey and Pennsylvanians understand that a pause on natural gas export terminals would’ve stifled fracking in Pennsylvania.”
On NAFTA, Mr. Casey had expressed support for steps the Trump administration took to renegotiate NAFTA, and to withdraw outright from another Pacific trade deal.
Mr. Casey voted for the updated trade agreement, but in a statement on his Senate website, he notes that significant changes were made before he and other Democrats supported it. It adds that “the initial version negotiated by the Trump Administration was a corporate trade deal and completely unacceptable.”
Michael Gold contributed reporting.
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