Top GOP contenders in Tennessee’s U.S. Senate race begin attacks as gap narrows between Hagerty, Sethi – Tennessean
As voters begin to head to the polls for early voting starting Friday, the top contenders in Tennessee’s Republican primary for the open U.S. Senate seat have begun attacking each other.
This week, the campaigns of former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Bill Hagerty and Nashville orthopedic trauma surgeon Manny Sethi launched new ads on TV and radio criticizing one another.
The new ads come a week after statewide public polling released by The Trafalgar Group showed a tight race — with Hagerty at 42.3% and Sethi at 38.8% — numbers that would indicate Sethi has significantly closed the gap after months of trailing by double digits.
Both campaigns have recently released internal polls that show wildly different margins.
On Thursday, Hagerty debuted a new TV ad dubbed “Patriot,” which featured Sgt. First Class Joseph James, a Hendersonville resident who said he was part of four deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11.
“Our flag reminds me of the patriots who gave their lives to defend America,” James says. “Nobody should ever burn it and I don’t trust Manny Sethi to stop it.”
James said Sethi donated money to an organization that “bankrolled” rioters, though it did not elaborate on the donation or group in question. A footnote in the ad cites an April 2008 donation reported with the Federal Election Commission.
Chris Devaney, Sethi’s campaign chairman and senior adviser, said the ad apparently references a $50 donation Sethi made to a family friend running for Congress. The money was given through ActBlue, a payment processing company used by Democrat candidates and organizations.
Shortly after Hagerty’s new ad began running, Sethi’s campaign announced their own new statewide television ad criticizing his opponent. That one was called “Romney, Gore, and Common Core.”
In Sethi’s new spot, he highlights Hagerty’s past political donations to a Democrat and moderate Republican.
“Why is the establishment attacking a nice guy like me?” Sethi asks. “Well, folks are finding out that Bill Hagerty’s endorsed by Mitt Romney.”
Romney, who has been criticized by both Sethi and Hagerty, has not publicly weighed in on Tennessee’s Senate race since before Hagerty launched his bid. In June 2019, Romney said he would “love it” if Hagerty entered the race, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The ad notes that Hagerty donated $100,000 to Romney, a U.S. Senator from Utah, former GOP presidential contender and critic of President Donald Trump, as well as an unspecified amount to former Democratic Vice President Al Gore.
According Federal Election Commission filings, Hagerty donated $50,000 at once to Romney’s fundraising committee in 2012, along with a series of other donations to his re-election efforts that year through various state parties. He also made additional maximum contributions in 2012, 2011 and 2008 to Romney’s presidential campaigns.
Hagerty made “millions off Common Core,” a federal education curriculum implemented in public schools, Sethi alleges, and “tried to get Tennessee to do trade deals with China.”
Like in Hagerty’s ad, Sethi’s team did not elaborate on the allegations.
Abigail Sigler, a spokeswoman for Hagerty’s campaign, declined to respond to any of the issues raised in the ad. Instead she said Sethi’s “Never Trumpers” have been attacking Hagerty since he landed the president’s endorsement.
When Trump endorsed Hagerty last year, Sethi’s chief strategist said, “Tennesseans will never elect Thurston Howell III” – a reference to a character on the syndicated sitcom Gilligan’s Island.
“President Trump looked at all the candidates in this race, and he endorsed Bill because he trusts Bill to stand with him to protect conservative values, get our economy going again, hold China accountable, and stand up for life,” she said.
In a separate radio ad dubbed “Massachusetts Manny,” Hagerty’s campaign noted Sethi served on a board of trustees of the Massachusetts Medical Society, which supported the Affordable Care Act.
Further, the ad highlights an application Sethi filed for a White House fellowship under former President Barack Obama. In 2009, Sethi was named a finalist for the fellowship.
Finally, the ad says Sethi didn’t contribute to President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.
“Massachusetts Manny is a liberal elitist,” a narrator says. “He doesn’t share our Tennessee values.”
In May 2016, per FEC reports, Sethi donated $10,000 to the Tennessee Republican Party’s federal election account, which his campaign said was to further Trump’s presidential efforts.
“Hagerty is losing and resorting to misleading attacks,” Devaney said in response to questions about the radio ad. “Dr. Manny has always opposed socialized medicine, and his time as a Harvard medical student, as part of a medical society, doesn’t change that. Manny applied for a non-partisan position with the White House, unlike Bill Hagerty, who actually worked for President Obama and Bill Clinton.”
Devaney was referring to Hagerty’s appointment to the selection panel for the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships during the Bill Clinton administration, a position he also held throughout the George W. Bush and Obama administrations.
In the 2016 GOP presidential primary, Hagerty served as a delegate for Jeb Bush. Later that year, he went on to work on Trump’s transition team.
Hagerty has been endorsed by Trump in this year’s primary. Sethi, meanwhile, told The Tennessean he cast a vote for Trump in the 2016 primary.
The trio of new ads come after Hagerty and Sethi have spent months campaigning, largely avoiding any outright criticism of one another. The sudden heightened rhetoric between the two campaigns comes as the race enters its final stretch.
Hagerty and Sethi are the leading contenders for Tennessee’s open U.S. Senate seat, which includes 15 GOP candidates. Early voting for the Aug. 6 primary begins Friday and continues through Aug.1.
In the Democratic U.S. Senate primary, frontrunner James Mackler also launched a new statewide television ad Thursday titled “All of America.”
Mackler highlights his time in the Iraq War as part of the 101st Airborne Division, explaining that he wants to “restore respect, honesty, and integrity to Washington.”
“When we came under fire in Iraq, we weren’t Republicans or Democrats, we were Americans working to accomplish a mission,” Mackler said.
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Reach Joel Ebert at jebert@tennessean.com or 615-772-1681 and on Twitter @joelebert29.
Published 5:05 PM EDT Jul 16, 2020
