Republican group launches ad blitz on behalf of Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt

WASHINGTON — Sen. Roy Blunt’s campaign is getting a big-time boost from an influential Washington advocacy group, which plans to spend nearly $800,000 on a TV and radio ad blitz supporting the Missouri Republican.

The group buying the pro-Blunt ads is called One Nation, and it’s part of a network of GOP organizations affiliated with American Crossroads, a super PAC founded with the help of Republican strategist Karl Rove.

One Nation’s foray into Missouri — more than a year before the 2016 election — may be a sign that the Show-Me State Senate race is becoming more competitive. Blunt, first elected to the Senate in 2010, will likely face Democratic Secretary of State Jason Kander in next year’s contest.

Carl Forti, the political director of American Crossroads, expressed confidence that Blunt would win, but he said the race was on the GOP group’s radar.

“It’s one we’re absolutely watching,” Forti told USA TODAY reporters at a meeting in September.

One Nation did not release the script of the ads, which are set to launch Wednesday. But Ian Prior, a spokesman for the group, said the spots would highlight Blunt’s work on a bipartisan bill to give military families more flexibility when a service member is reassigned to a new location. The measure would give military spouses additional time to relocate — allowing the family’s children to finish out the school year before uprooting, for example.

One Nation, which bills itself as an issue advocacy group trying to “break through the partisan gridlock in Congress,” operates as a non-profit group and does not have to publicly disclose its contributors’ names. The group has already been active in other states with pivotal Senate races.

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Prior said the Missouri ad campaign is aimed at showcasing Blunt’s ability to “work across the aisle.” Blunt has cosponsored the bill with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.

“Since the Senate has been under new (GOP) management, it has championed the cause of military families and veterans, and Sen. Blunt has led the charge on that effort with his support of the Military Families Stability Act,” Prior said, citing the legislation’s official title. “We want to highlight that work and intend to do more on the issue in the future.”

Missouri Democrats believe that Blunt is vulnerable, and the party establishment has rallied behind Kander as a strong fundraiser with a compelling biography.

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Kander raised about $825,000 in the third quarter — his biggest haul since he first announced — and he began October with $1.6 million in the bank. Blunt raised about $1.2 million in that same period, and he closed the quarter with $4.3 million cash on hand.

Political experts say Blunt is well-positioned to win re-election, because Missouri has tilted more Republican the past several elections and Blunt has crisscrossed the state cultivating his network of supporters.

“Blunt is a skillful politician who doesn’t take much for granted,” the nonpartisan Cook Political Report says in its analysis of the race.

The Cook Report rates the Missouri race as a “likely Republican” victory, as do two other respected nonpartisan political sites.

But Democrats say the race could upend the political conventional wisdom. They have attacked Blunt as a creature of Washington and highlighted his ties to lobbyists. Blunt’s wife, Abigail Blunt, is head of government affairs at Kraft Foods Group. One of his sons, former Gov. Matt Blunt, is a Washington lobbyist for the American auto industry. And another, Andy Blunt, who is running his father’s re-election campaign, works as a lobbyist in Jefferson City.

One recent press release from the Missouri Democratic Party attacked Blunt as an “out of touch politician,” while another portrayed him as part of Washington’s status quo.

Forti said he was not impressed with the Democrats’ playbook. He noted that Democrats launched similar attacks against Blunt in the 2010 election.

“It didn’t work,” Forti said, noting that Blunt easily defeated then Secretary of State Robin Carnahan that year. “If that’s the direction they are headed, (that’s) good for us.”

Fredreka Schouten contributed to this story.