North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis has a pretty devastating record for hacking and slashing his way through the state's budget. The Democratic Senate Campaign Committee thinks it's worth
$9.1 million in advertising to demonstrate to the state just how bad it's been. They'll be spending that in the coming months until Novembers election, starting with the ad above, focusing on the massive cuts to education Tillis shepherded through, while engineering tax cuts for the wealthy.
"House Speaker Thom Tillis drew a bulls-eye on public schools, cutting nearly $500 million," a female narrator in the 30-second ad says. "Tillis sliced and diced education, creating chaos in our classrooms and hurting middle class families."
Hagan has used similar criticism of Tillis' record on education in recent days, hoping to tilt female voters into her camp. If Hagan is to win a second term, she will need the overwhelming support of women to prevail in one of the closest and most expensive races in the country.
Hoping to help, Hagan's allies are focusing on education. The GOP-led North Carolina legislature cut taxes in 2013, leading to $480 million less for education in that year and the next.
Hagan is using free media to get the word out on those education cuts, by
appearing with educators at press conferences to talk about Tillis's record. That record includes telling the audience in a primary debate he would work to eliminate the federal Department of Education, a statement which he is now backtracking on.
Polling averages have the race essentially tied, though a PPP poll taken at the end of last month gives Hagan a 41-34 advantage.