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A new TV ad from Democrat Brandon Presley targets Mississippi GOP Gov. Tate Reeves over issues that are dogging the governor — pun intended — and also calls back to a well-known spot from Kentucky GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell's 1984 campaign.
"Tate Reeves has gone missing. He refuses to face the people. My job? Hunt him down," a narrator says as two bloodhounds sniff a Reeves campaign t-shirt, leading the hunter on a chase to a doctor's office, a farm, and a debate stage.
"Reeves doesn’t want to talk about the fact that our hospitals are closing, and he won’t expand Medicaid to save them. Or answer questions about being at the center of the largest public corruption scandal in state history," the narrator says. "And Tate Reeves refuses to show up and debate his opponent for governor, Brandon Presley."
The spot is extremely similar to McConnell's notable ad from his first Senate race in 1984, beginning with the same opening shot of bloodhounds sniffing a t-shirt with his opponent's name, and leading the hunter on a chase to find him.
"Good ideas aren’t restricted to one political party and it perfectly fits Reeves who has been hiding from Mississippians because of his role in the largest public corruption scandal in state history and his failed record on healthcare that has left 220,000 Mississippians uninsured and hospitals on the brink of closure," Presley campaign spokesperson Katherine Kurtz said in a statement regarding the two ads' similarities.
Presley and Reeves have been battling on the airwaves since the Aug. 8 primary, with Presley's campaign spending $3.5 million so far and Reeves spending $4 million, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact.