The NRCC will air its first TV attack ads against a Democratic incumbent this week, targeting Rep. Matt Cartwright in Pennsylvania's 8th District, according to the NRCC's independent expenditure unit.

The committee will spend close to a half-million dollars on broadcast and cable TV and digital advertisements starting Wednesday and continuing through most of September in the Wilkes-Barre-area seat in northeastern Pennsylvania.

House Republicans are almost exclusively playing defense this election, but they are hoping to compete for a handful of Democratic districts President Donald Trump carried in 2016 to mitigate losses elsewhere. Cartwright has never faced a battleground general election in his three terms in Congress, but his district swung sharply toward Republicans at the presidential level in the last election, voting for Trump by double digits after going for former President Barack Obama by double digits in 2012.

Cartwright faces Republican John Chrin, a former investment banker who has seeded his campaign with over $1.5 million in self-funding.

Cartwright and Chrin have already traded a handful of early attack ads themselves, with the Republican attacking the incumbent on sanctuary cities and linking him to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, while Cartwright has gone after Chrin as a "Wall Street banker" who wants to cut Social Security and Medicare.

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POLITICO
By Scott Bland
Sep 4, 2018