Blake Masters, GOP Senate challenger, getting late boost from $3.7 million Super PAC ad buy

A political action committee is throwing additional support behind Republican Senate challenger Blake Masters with a hefty new ad buy opposing his opponent, incumbent Sen. Mark Kelly.

Saving Arizona PAC filed Wednesday that it spent more than $3.7 million on an ad campaign targeting Kelly, D-Ariz., according to Federal Election Commission records, bringing its total spending in the race to about $10.7 million.

Of the new ad buy, about $3.7 million is for ads opposing Kelly and about $35,000 is going towards ads supporting Masters in the final stretch leading up to the Nov. 8 general election.

The Super PAC was originally funded in part by billionaire Peter Thiel, who put in a record $15 million to help his protégé Masters win the GOP Senate nomination in the August primary. It’s unclear if this new ad buy was funded with any of Thiel’s money.

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The new ad buy is a sign of momentum for Masters, who was trailing in polls behind Kelly but may now be competitive, according to more recent polling. Ad funding from outside committees is relatively even between the two, but Kelly’s campaign has by far outspent its opponent.

The Masters' campaign said the Saving Arizona ad buy was “great news.”

“These new ads will further expose Mark Kelly as a fraud and a hypocrite,” Zachery Henry, a Masters campaign spokesperson, said in a statement.

The Kelly campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Democratic advertisers have outspent Republican advertisers in Arizona's Senate race to the order of $65 million to $32 million since Sept. 5, according to AdImpact, which tracks political ad spending.

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The ad funding for Masters comes as the Senate Leadership Fund, a PAC aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., recently canceled ad time it had reserved in Arizona.

Former President Donald Trump’s Super PAC, MAGA Inc., also bought ads opposing Kelly, which will run in Arizona over the next week, CNN reported Wednesday.

Saving Arizona PAC earlier this month spent around $2 million on an ad campaign targeting Kelly on undocumented immigration and criminal justice, NBC News reported. The ads were expected to air for 10 days in the Phoenix market.

Kelly has trounced Masters in terms of campaign fundraising and spending. Kelly has raised over $73 million this cycle, compared with Masters’ about $10 million, and Kelly has spent over $61 million, compared with Masters’ about $7 million, according to data from OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that tracks money in politics.

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But independent expenditures come out much more evenly. Those are defined as spending on communication advocating a candidate win or lose, but not in coordination with a candidate or campaign.

That spending shows that even if Masters hasn’t been able to raise money like Kelly, he’s had allies willing to spend big for him to make sure his message gets in front of Arizona voters.

A log of independent expenditures posted on Twitter by campaign watcher Rob Pyers shows that outside spending for Masters and against Kelly, and vice versa, add up to roughly the same amount for both candidates, just below $40 million each.

Saving Arizona PAC is the top committee spender for Masters and against Kelly, followed by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the arm of the GOP dedicated to electing Republicans to the Senate. For Kelly and against Masters, the top committee spenders are the Senate Majority PAC and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic equivalent to the NRSC.

Reach the reporter at Alison.Steinbach@arizonarepublic.com or at 602-444-4282. Follow her on Twitter @alisteinbach.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Super PAC gave $3.7 million ad boost to Blake Masters, opposing Kelly