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Did we just see the first ad of the 2020 election season?

A Democratic group is up on local airways with a 30-second ad targeting U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis over the ongoing partial federal shutdown.

Posted Updated
US Sen. Thom Tillis
By
Travis Fain
, WRAL statehouse reporter
RALEIGH, N.C. — A Democratic group is up on local airways with a 30-second ad targeting U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis over the ongoing partial federal shutdown.

Tillis, of course, is up for re-election in 2020.

So, basically, the 2020 election season has started?

Sure. Why not?

Locally, the ad is running on WRAL-TV and Fox 50. The group behind the ad, Majority Forward, is also targeting five other Republican senators from Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa and Maine, all of whom are up in 2020.

A group official told The Washington Post they plan to spend about $600,000 on the ad. The North Carolina version keys in on hurricane relief efforts that have been slowed by the shutdown.

"And where's Thom Tillis?" the narrator asks.

Tillis has pulled a couple of Democratic challengers for 2020, according to reports from The News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer: Raleigh tax attorney Eva Lee, who filed paperwork all the way back in 2017, and Mecklenburg County Commissioner Trevor Fuller, who plans an announcement next week.

A Tillis spokesman didn't immediately return an email seeking comment Friday afternoon.

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