Democrats are dumping another $1.25 million into next week’s bellwether special election to replace George Santos.

The last-minute TV ad blitz race suggests some concern from Democrats about next Tuesday’s contest in New York’s 3rd Congressional District.

House Majority PAC, Democrats’ top outside group focused on House races, is releasing three new ads to boost Democratic former Rep. Tom Suozzi against Republican Mazi Melesa Pilip. And one of their ads even compares her to the disgraced Santos, whose expulsion from the House triggered the special election.

The super PAC’s new ads aim to defend Suozzi from Republican attacks that he is weak on border security and slam Pilip on abortion rights. A third spot accuses Pilip of ethics issues and compares her to Santos. The new buy will run from Tuesday through the election.

The eleventh-hour deluge is notable because Democrats already have a massive financial advantage in the race. House Majority PAC alone has spent $7.2 million. But both parties desperately want a victory in the race.

Democrats are hoping to reverse recent declines on Long Island after losing seats there last cycle to Republicans running on crime-centered narratives. A loss would set an ominous start to the 2024 election year in which Democrats face tough fights for the White House and both chambers of Congress.

For Republicans, the race is a kind of referendum of their recent gains — and the first special election under House Speaker Mike Johnson. The election will test the continued potency of GOP messages on issues such as immigration and crime, and can provide additional immediate padding to Republicans’ razor-thin majority in the House.

Before this latest buy, Democrats had already spent or reserved a collective $10.1 million on advertising, compared to nearly $6.6 million from Republicans, according to data from AdImpact. Suozzi also vastly outraised Pilip by a more than 3 to 1 margin from Oct. 1 through Jan. 24.

But that spending gap doesn’t seem to be completely quelling Democrats’ worries.

One new HMP spot calls Pilip “an ethical nightmare” who will “embarrass us again” and juxtaposes her photo with the disgraced Santos. The voiceover warns that Pilip owes more than $100,000 in unpaid taxes to the IRS. Another says Pilip is “running on a platform to ban abortion” with no exceptions for rape or incest. The third pro-Suozzi spot touts his work to support ICE and notes that he worked with former Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) “to get tough on illegal immigration.”

President Joe Biden won the Long Island- and Queens-based district by more than 8 points. But Santos captured it in 2022 in a red wave that gave the GOP control of all of Long Island.

Republicans are doubling down on an immigration-centered message, using footage in some of their ads that shows Suozzi bragging about kicking ICE out of Nassau County. The migrant crisis has become a major issue in the campaign as a swell of more than 160,000 migrants from the southern border have landed in the New York City area.

President Joe Biden urged Congress to pass the bipartisan border deal unveiled Sunday night by Senate negotiators, ramping up the pressure on House Republicans who have repeatedly cast doubt on the bipartisan effort.

“Working with my administration, the United States Senate has done the hard work it takes to reach a bipartisan agreement. Now, House Republicans have to decide. Do they want to solve the problem? Or do they want to keep playing politics with the border?” Biden said in a lengthy statement.

The president’s response came not long after senators released the long-awaited $118 billion deal that would unleash stricter border and immigration policies, while sending billions of dollars to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan as well as the southern border. The bill’s introduction kicks off a sprint as the White House and negotiators work to sell the deal to Republicans and progressives before it heads for a procedural vote in the Senate scheduled for Wednesday.

The president said the agreement released Sunday includes some of the “toughest and fairest set of border reforms in decades,” and ones that he “strongly” supports. Biden asked Congress to pass the deal quickly — placing the fate of the deal in their hands. And he once again dared Republicans to reject the deal as it faces a make-or-break moment amid GOP fissures in both chambers.

“I’ve made my decision. I’m ready to solve the problem. I’m ready to secure the border. And so are the American people,” the president said. “I know we have our divisions at home but we cannot let partisan politics get in the way of our responsibilities as a great nation. I refuse to let that happen.”

The border has long been a challenging issue for the Biden White House. The president has seen record crossings since taking office in 2021, further straining a southern border already weighed down by irregular migration and an overwhelmed asylum processing system. Border Patrol agents reported a record 302,034 encounters with migrants over the southern border in December, according to figures released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

In addition, the fast-approaching 2024 election has piled on the pressure for Biden to take action on the border — to address the crisis but to also win the messaging battle on an issue Republicans frequently used to rally their base. Former President Donald Trump, Biden’s likely 2024 opponent, is sure to continue his efforts to combust a deal, adding another layer to efforts to sell the border legislation.

The legislation includes an authority that would effectively “close” the border if the number of migrant crossings reach a certain number over a certain period of time, although a limited number of people would still be allowed to apply for asylum at ports of entry.

Biden suggested publicly late last month that he’d be open to such an authority, vowing to “shut down the border” as soon as the bill was passed.

“I urge Congress to come together and swiftly pass this bipartisan agreement,” Biden said in Sunday night’s statement. “Get it to my desk so I can sign it into law immediately.”

Given the White House’s work with Senate Republicans on the legislation, Biden administration officials have focused their attention on Speaker Mike Johnson, casting him and House Republicans as the barrier to securing the border.

During the Senate talks, the Biden administration has tried to flip the long-held view — one borne out in public polling — that Republicans are better trusted on the issues of immigration and protecting the border. The administration argues the House GOP has blocked all of the president’s efforts to secure the border.

“Despite arguing for 6 straight years that presidents need new legal authority to secure the border, and despite claiming to agree with President Biden on the need for hiring more Border Patrol agents and deploying new fentanyl detection equipment, Speaker Johnson is now the chief impediment to all 3,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates wrote in a strategy memo released last week.

Johnson’s camp has blamed Biden for reversing Trump-era border regulations that led to an uptick in migrants crossing the border.

“In a desperate attempt to shift blame for a crisis their policies have induced, they have argued it’s a funding problem,” wrote Johnson spokesperson Raj Shah in a memo last month. “Clearly, they have no facts to back up their claim.”

The bill raises “credible fear” standards for migrants; if they are able to pass the more challenging and faster screening, the migrants would be released after full adjudication of their cases and be allowed to work immediately. The legislation would also provide 50,000 visas a year — a mix of family and employment visas, and include the Fend Off Fentanyl Act and the Afghan Adjustment Act.

A major sticking point in talks was the president’s humanitarian parole authority, which the administration uses to accept up to 30,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela each month. The legislation would not affect this program, which has been central to the administration’s border management strategy, including an agreement with Mexico to also accept 30,000 migrants a month from those four countries.

But the administration would no longer be able to offer parole grants to incentivize migrants to use the online app CBP One, which would curtail the president’s authority to allow more undocumented immigrants into the country.

“This agreement on border security and immigration does not include everything we have fought for over the past three years — and we will continue to fight for these priorities — but it shows: we can make the border more secure while preserving legal immigration, consistent with our values as a nation,” Vice President Kamala Harris said in a statement.

Kevin McCarthy couldn’t bend unruly Republican lawmakers to his will in Washington. Back home in Bakersfield, Republican voters may reject his succession plan.

The ousted House speaker’s abrupt retirement launched a fierce fight for one of California’s few reliably red seats. Where it once seemed McCarthy could anoint a successor, his preferred candidate — Assemblymember Vince Fong — is battling two other viable Republicans in a test of conservative voters’ mood and attitude toward their party’s old guard.

As Fong and his rivals sprint to the March 5 primary to replace McCarthy, they are navigating the same forces that sealed his swift demise: an anti-establishment fervor in the party fed by the commanding influence of former President Donald Trump. If McCarthy’s hand-picked successor falters on his home turf, it would be another rejection of the status quo.

“There is that historic and continuing effort to topple the folks who have been on top for a while,” said Tim Rosales, a Republican consultant who’s not involved in the race.

Those headwinds could dull the edge typically enjoyed by an outgoing incumbent’s pick.

Fong does bring formidable advantages to the race. He has built up his name identification over years in office, starting out as McCarthy’s district director in 2006 before ascending the Sacramento ranks to become Assembly Republicans’ top budget official. His home county comprises the majority of the district. He also has endorsements from both McCarthy and the California Republican delegation.

Fong has projected himself as a reliable frontrunner.

“Washington and Sacramento have this gigantic bullseye on our region and we are feeling the consequences,” Fong said in an interview, pointing to Democratic efforts to phase out an oil industry that is an economic pillar in the district. “I’m the most experienced, tested, and proven candidate.”

Those assets may only go so far in a tumultuous new era of Republican infighting. McCarthy is still viewed with suspicion by a fervently pro-Trump conservative wing that sees him as insufficiently conservative and toppled his speakership. McCarthy limped into retirement after that ignominious finish, weakening his stature in the district.

Fong’s chief rivals, Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux — a longtime incumbent who is running on a law-and-order platform with a healthy dose of Trump — and Fresno-based businessperson Kyle Kirkland, who is presenting himself as a political outsider, hail from different parts of a redrawn district, giving them built-in bases.

As they compete for the mantle of Trump fealty, they are also making the case that Fong is part of a discredited establishment. Boudreaux described Fong as a kind of legacy admission.

“Look, Kevin picked his buddy,” Boudreaux said in an interview. “He’s endorsing his friend — that doesn’t mean he’s the best candidate.”

Voters will be writing the ultimate epitaph of McCarthy’s up-and-down career. His ascent brought uncustomary clout to a district that’s far removed, economically and ideologically, from California’s political power centers and population hubs of Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento.

Yet McCarthy’s decision to bail on the remainder of his term stirred frustration at home — and his exit followed grumblings he had become detached from the district as his focus turned to Washington and currying favor with Trump.

“There are John Q. Citizens out here who were critical of him” for “neglecting the district and the hypocrisy over Trump,” in which McCarthy both embraced and briefly distanced himself from the former president, said former Bakersfield City Council member Mark Salvaggio, who is remaining neutral in the race. “He was known for his fundraising and recruiting Republican candidates throughout the nation, and when that vanished with his humiliating ouster, he didn’t have that anymore and I think it wasn’t fun for him.”

In an email thread between local conservatives, a prominent businessperson who is supporting Boudreaux denounced McCarthy as a “quitter” and Fong as “McCarthy 2.0,” a product of the “local machine pumping out candidates.”

Assemblymember Devon Mathis, a Republican who backs Boudreaux, derided Fong in an interview as “the guy who’s trying to skate in on someone’s coattails.”

“Frankly, a lot of people see that McCarthy abandoned everybody,” Mathis said. “He loses power, so he gets mad and he quits. That’s what I hear on the street. If a guy’s the number two to that, why would I want a guy who’s probably going to do the same thing?”

Fong and McCarthy belong to a decades-long lineage of Kern County Republicans elevated by a kingmaker political firm, Western Pacific Research, that worked for each of Fong’s Assembly runs.

An earlier paragon of that system, former Rep. Bill Thomas, already broke with McCarthy by denouncing his former protege’s handling of the Jan. 6 riots. Now some local conservatives see this election as a chance to break that system by rejecting Fong, the next in line. Western Pacific President Cathy Abernathy dismissed the infighting as “wannabes” missing the point.

“There are some activists that spend more time fighting other Republicans than fighting Democrats,” Abernathy said in an interview, “and so those people like to think there’s a machine or something going on that prevents their candidate from winning.”

Redistricting created an opening for more candidates, extending the 20th congressional district far beyond its former Kern County power base and creating what some staffers refer to as “the Godzilla district.”

Then, McCarthy’s eleventh-hour retirement unleashed chaos. Fong initially declined to run but reversed and jumped in when another presumed candidate decided against running, embroiling him in an ongoing legal fight.

McCarthy’s network has already buoyed Fong. In the weeks after launching, Fong raised tens of thousands of dollars from political action committees tied to House Republicans — including a McCarthy ally, Rep. Patrick McHenry, whom the party’s conservative wing rejected as speakership candidate. A new Super PAC just began spending on Fong’s behalf.

Yet Boudreaux outraised Fong last year in a show of his staying power. Kirkland has given his campaign $100,000, allowing him to compete with better-known candidates and fund advertising.

The former speaker has been busy exacting electoral vengeance on Republicans who crossed him. But there is a broad expectation among local Republicans that McCarthy would intervene on Fong’s behalf if he is at risk, either directly or by marshaling some of the deep-pocketed allies he collected as speaker.

“Kevin’s a competitive guy, and the odds he’s going to let someone take his seat who’s not his candidate — it’s unlikely,” said a campaign operative familiar with McCarthy’s thinking who was granted anonymity to discuss internal Republican politics.

And then there is the Trump factor.

The former president’s near-inexorable march to the Republican nomination is hanging over the race. Despite the withered state of the California Republican apparatus, it produced more votes for Trump than any other in 2020 because of its large population. Whoever wins McCarthy’s seat could well be working with a second Trump administration — and they are jostling for position.

Boudreaux has rolled out endorsements from former Trump officials and included footage of himself with Trump in his first campaign spot. Repeat candidate David Giglio was already running as the MAGA movement’s anti-McCarthy scion before McCarthy retired. Fong’s endorsement from McCarthy could cut both ways: The former speaker at one point earned the affectionate moniker “My Kevin” from Trump, yet has faced MAGA resistance.

As they compete for primary votes, candidates have focused on red-meat topics like immigration and the border — an issue that is also central to Trump’s reelection bid. Both Fong and Boudreaux highlighted it in their first campaign spots. At the same time, Boudreaux has faced attacks from the right for floating a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

“It’s echoing the national messages that are coming from the Trump campaign,” said Republican political consultant Tal Eslick, who has worked for multiple California Republicans.

For some voters, perceived fealty to Trump could be the deciding factor — and Fong risks being tied to McCarthy’s liabilities on that front as well. McCarthy rose to prominence by wrapping his arms around the former president but lost his speakership after failing to appease GOP hardliners in a standoff over the federal budget.

“People see Kevin as someone who pretended to fully embrace the MAGA message and movement only to get power and then not deliver on things like border security,” Giglio, who placed fourth in a primary for a different seat last cycle, said in an interview. “We need someone who fully aligns with (Trump’s) vision and that way, when he wins next year, it’s not someone who’s going to obstruct him.”

Senators in both parties have finalized a deal on stricter border and immigration policies that is headed toward an uncertain floor vote in the coming days.

The $118 billion agreement, which was released Sunday afternoon and negotiated for months, would tighten the standard for migrants to receive asylum, automatically shut down the southern border to illegal crossings if migrant encounters hit certain daily benchmarks and send billions of dollars to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan as well as the border.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has vowed to hold a procedural vote to advance the package Wednesday, though it’s unclear if the legislation has the necessary 60 votes to clear the chamber. About 20 to 25 Republican senators are ready to evaluate the specifics and a similar number are leaning against the deal, according to lead GOP negotiator Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.). At least a handful of Democrats are also expected to vote against it.

President Joe Biden praised the agreement in a Sunday night statement that called on Congress to send it to his desk: “If you believe, as I do, that we must secure the border now, doing nothing is not an option,” Biden said.

The border-foreign aid deal faces even more difficult odds in the House. Speaker Mike Johnson said on NBC’s Meet The Press on Sunday that the House would take up a $17 billion Israel aid bill instead of the supplemental funding package. In a Saturday letter to House Republicans, Johnson had said the chamber would not swiftly consider the bipartisan deal.

Lankford and GOP allies hope that release of the text will dispel the notion that the bill would allow 5,000 undocumented immigrants to cross into the country daily. Under the parameters of the legislation and the current situation at the border, which sees crossings sometimes exceeding 10,000 per day, the border would be shut down to illegal crossings immediately.

The bill would preserve orderly asylum appointments at ports of entry as a way for immigrants to seek legal entry into the country, requiring that those ports process at least 1,400 migrants daily during periods when the border is shut down.

The legislation also includes the Fend Off Fentanyl Act and Afghan Adjustment Act as part of the larger deal. It would send about $62 billion to support Ukraine in its invasion against Russia, $14 billion in security aid for Israel, $10 billion in humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip and Ukraine, $20 billion for the border and nearly $5 billion to partners in the Indo-Pacific to fight Chinese aggression.

In addition to mandating a border shutdown at 5,000 daily encounters, the bill would allow the president to invoke that authority at 4,000 per day. Once the border is shut it would stay sealed to illegal crossings until encounters of unlawful crossings drop to about 2,000 per day. In addition, the use of presidential parole authority, which gives the president wider latitude to allow more undocumented immigrants into the country, would be curtailed. And the bill speeds up the asylum screening process significantly.

Lankford said he had hoped to release the bill earlier to get the process moving more quickly but the complexity of the language made that tricky: “The words matter.” The legislation is the most ambitious piece of immigration legislation to get serious congressional consideration in six years.

At the end of the new accelerated asylum process that the bill would create, migrants who are “unable to meet that threshold, they are removed from the country in an expedited manner,” Sinema said on Sunday.

“Individuals who are approached between ports of entry are currently paroled,” she added, meaning that the migrants are given a notice to appear and are released. But under the new bill, Sinema said, “those individuals will be taken into custody, where they will then, if they claim asylum, go through the initial protection determination interview.”

“If they do not claim asylum, they will be removed under expedited removal … So people who come through the desert, whether they are evading law enforcement or giving themselves up to law enforcement, if they’re not seeking asylum, they don’t have a claim to the country and will be removed,” she said.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries slammed Johnson in a statement Sunday, calling the speaker’s decision to instead put an Israel aid bill on the floor this week “a cynical attempt to undermine the Senate’s bipartisan effort, given that House Republicans have been ordered by the former president not to pass any border security legislation or assistance for Ukraine.”

Former President Donald Trump and conservatives in both chambers have repeatedly attacked the legislation as insufficient, instead calling on Biden to use his existing executive authorities to shut down the border.

Republicans, including Johnson, had demanded a package last fall that linked border policy changes to billions in foreign aid. But the speaker denies his new position is due to Trump, saying on Meet the Press: “He’s not calling the shots. I’m the one calling the shots.”

Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) called House Speaker Mike Johnson’s decision to move forward with a separate Israel package “very dirty pool” Sunday.

“It’s an act of staggering bad faith,” Himes told CBS’ “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan in an interview alongside Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio).

Senate lawmakers are negotiating a border deal coupling immigration law and foreign aid, a deal that many lawmakers fear will be dead on arrival in the GOP-controlled House. Johnson sent a letter on the deal to House Republicans on Saturday saying that “by failing to include the House in their negotiations, they have eliminated the ability for a swift consideration of any legislation.”

“Next week, we will take up and pass a clean, standalone Israel supplemental package,” Johnson wrote.

Part of the rationale for negotiating a foreign aid deal that includes changes to the immigration system is because Republicans in both the House and Senate had been insisting that no foreign aid should be added without border reforms.

But now that a proposed deal is in the works, GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump has argued against it, and at least some congressional Republicans have changed their tune. According to Himes, “before the wording of a bipartisan border deal was even available to anybody,” Johnson said the bill would be dead on arrival.

“I think what’s happening here is that the speaker is taking a move to get Israel aid done, which we all support, most of us support, I shouldn’t say all. But that will allow him to ultimately not do a border deal because there are Republicans, Mike Turner not amongst them, who would rather that problem be an issue in November and that it not be solved,” Himes said.

Turner also defended the border deal Sunday, saying, “I think that we really have four significant national security threats. We have Asia, we have Ukraine, we have Israel and what’s going on in the Middle East. And of course, we have our border. And right now we’ve been proceeding on negotiations on those four.”

“So I do think that all these are coupled,” Turner said.

“So as much as it is important for us to provide aid to Israel, this is the first step in getting aid to Israel at the expense of any aid to Ukraine and at the expense of a generational opportunity to actually get a border immigration deal done,” Himes said.

Describing the jurors as from “extremely left-wing jurisdictions,” Sen. J.D. Vance said Sunday the New York jury verdicts in the E. Jean Carroll defamation and sexual assault cases against President Donald Trump had no validity.

A former “Never Trumper,” Vance (R-Ohio) now fully backs the former president, who is originally from New York City. Trump was ordered to pay $83.3 million in damages to advice columnist Carroll and is the center of a myriad of cases set to play out this year amid his 2024 campaign.

“This case, like so many legal cases against Donald Trump, they’re trumped up — they’re in extremely left-wing jurisdictions, or it’s actually the Biden administration prosecuting his chief political rival,” Vance said to host George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week.”

“George, if you look at all of these cases, the through line, two-fold. No. 1, they’re funded by Donald Trump’s political opponents, and the goal here is not to help us actually have a real conversation about how to advance the country forward. Their goal is to defeat Trump at the courts because these people know they can’t defeat him at the ballot box,” he told Stephanopoulos.

Stephanopoulos pressed Vance as to whether he believed any verdicts by a group of average citizens in New York City had any validity. “Well, when the cases are funded by left-wing donors and when the case has absolute left-wing bias all over it, George, absolutely I think that we should call into question that particular conclusion,” he said.

The response mirrors that of the former president, who criticized the verdict in a post to his site Truth Social.

“Absolutely ridiculous! I fully disagree with both verdicts, and will be appealing this whole Biden Directed Witch Hunt focused on me and the Republican Party. Our Legal System is out of control, and being used as a Political Weapon. They have taken away all First Amendment Rights. THIS IS NOT AMERICA!” Trump wrote.

When asked about claims that support for Trump sanctions behavior like sexual assault and defamation, Vance said that the statement was unfair to victims.

“I think it’s actually very unfair to the victims of sexual assault, to say that somehow their lives are being worse by electing Donald Trump for president, when what he’s trying to do, I think, is restore prosperity,” Vance said.

“I think most Americans recognize that this is not what we want to fight the 2024 election over. Let’s fight it over issues,” Vance said.

Speaker Mike Johnson warned Saturday that the House won’t rush to pass a Senate border-foreign aid deal and will instead take up a stand-alone bill for Israel aid next week.

The decision by House Republicans comes as a bipartisan group of Senate negotiators are expected this weekend to release the text of their deal, which would link more funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan to new border security measures.

But Johnson, in a letter to House Republicans, a copy of which was obtained by POLITICO, hit the brakes on any already outside chance that the House would quickly take up any deal that passes the Senate without changes.

“Their leadership is aware that by failing to include the House in their negotiations, they have eliminated the ability for swift consideration of any legislation. As I have said consistently for the past three months, the House will have to work its will on these issues and our priorities will need to be addressed,” Johnson wrote in the letter.

Johnson’s letter is the latest sign of the hurdles a Senate deal will face in the GOP-controlled House. There’s growing pressure from former President Donald Trump and his allies within the Senate Republican conference to spike any agreement.

Meanwhile, House conservatives, including Johnson, have warned that if they don’t believe the border reform efforts go far enough that the bill will be dead on arrival in their chamber. And there’s growing skepticism about more Ukraine aid within the House GOP conference, including a warning from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) that she could trigger a vote to try to oust Johnson if he put it up for a vote.

Instead, Johnson said in his letter to House GOP colleagues that they will vote next week on a “clean, standalone Israel supplemental package” — and try to build pressure on the Senate to take up the bill if it passes the House. Conservatives have been floating trying to break up the Senate deal. And Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) and Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), the chair of the Republican Study Committee, called on Johnson earlier this week to bring up a new Israel aid bill without IRS cuts attached.

The House bill, rolled out by Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) and backed by members of GOP leadership and the Appropriations Committee, would provide $17.6 billion in military assistance to Israel and funding for U.S. forces in the region.

The House previously passed new funding for Israel that was paid for by cutting IRS funding, making it a nonstarter for many Democrats. The Israel bill rolled out Saturday would not include offsets.

“During debate in the House and in numerous subsequent statements, Democrats made clear that their primary objection to the original House bill was with its offsets. The Senate will no longer have excuses, however misguided, against swift passage of this critical support for our ally,” Johnson wrote.

The intraparty contest between two Democrats vying for Rep. Katie Porter’s toss-up Orange County seat is rapidly emerging as one of the most vicious primary battles in California.

The latest salvo: an ad from state Sen. Dave Min accusing his rival, Joanna Weiss, of powering her campaign with money earned through the legal defense of sex offenders. The attack comes a week after Weiss released an ad slamming Min for his DUI arrest last year.

The volley of attack ads is the most public manifestation yet of a feud that has been playing out in Democratic circles for months. The two camps have been making their case to party bigwigs and activists that their rival’s baggage could compromise Democrats’ chances of holding on to a hard-fought swing seatthat could very well tip the balance of power in the House in November.

Now, those behind-the-scenes arguments are playing out on the airwaves, increasing the risk that either Democrat could emerge from the primary weakened against the likely Republican contender, Scott Baugh. Baugh, a former Republican lawmaker who came within 4 percentage points of Porter in the district in 2022, has consolidated much of the GOP establishment support and has built a war chest with an eye toward the general election.

Min’s ad, which is part of a six-figure streaming and digital buy, was released on Friday.

“Why is Joanna Weiss attacking Dave Min?” asks the ad’s narrator. “To hide the fact that she and her husband made millions defending Catholic priests found guilty of molesting children in Orange County — money that Joanna is using to fund her campaign. Those aren’t the values we want in Congress.”

The ad cites a report from the Daily Beast that delved into work by Weiss’ husband, attorney Jason Weiss, to defend the Catholic Diocese of Orange County in multiple sex abuse cases.

Dan Driscoll, Min’s campaign manager, called the accounts in the story “as disgusting as they are disqualifying.”

“Joanna Weiss has run a 100% negative campaign to hide the fact that she is funding her campaign with money through truly despicable means,” Driscoll said in a statement. “State Senator Dave Min stands with survivors of sexual abuse and assault and is proud to have 8 bills signed into law providing them greater means of protection and justice.”

Weiss’ campaign pushed back against the allegations in the ad, noting that Jason Weiss primarily represented the diocese on employment matters and did not make millions of dollars through that legal work.

While Weiss, a former lawyer who founded a volunteer political activism group in 2018, has loaned herself significant money during the course of the race — roughly $230,000, according to campaign finance filings — her campaign said the money came from refinancing her house, not her husband’s earnings.

“Dave Min is resorting to lies to distract voters from his criminal history and that he would be serving his first term in Congress on probation,” said Emma Weinert, Weiss’ campaign manager. “Orange County deserves a leader who keeps their promises and will not turn to these defamatory, sexist attacks.”

Min was arrested last May in Sacramento for drunk driving after a night of receptions with lobbyists. He pleaded no contest and was sentenced to three years probation. He has spoken frankly about the incident as “the worst mistake of my life.”

Electability has been at the heart of the fight between the two Democrats vying for the coastal Orange County seat. For months, Weiss’ allies have argued that Min’s drunk driving arrest — which took place in Sacramento after a night of receptions with lobbyists — is so politically toxic that his candidacy would offer a pickup opportunity for Republicans, who are mostly playing defense in key California House races this year.

Weiss has a powerful ally on her side — EMILYs List, a group that supports pro-abortion rights women candidates. The organization has made Weiss a top priority for this election cycle and announced a $1 million television and digital ad buy to boost her.

While some national Democrats say Min’s arrest remains a concern, he has not seen a major exodus of supporters. He has touted his early endorsement from Porter, as well as the backing of the state Democratic Party and the endorsement by the Los Angeles Times editorial board, which both came after the arrest. Other allies have mounted a vigorous defense of the state lawmaker, including the board of Democrats of Greater Irvine, who wrote a letter to EMILYs List accusing them of backing a “flawed” candidate.

Major players such as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee have stayed on the sidelines. That has left the Min and Weiss campaigns digging in for trench warfare and making their electability argument directly to the judges who matter most: the voters.

Prominent Republican lawmakers were quick to criticize Friday’s airstrikes in Iraq and Syria as insufficient following the deaths of three U.S. soldiers in Jordan this week.

In the first of multiple rounds of expected retaliatory actions, U.S. bomber aircraft hit more than 85 targets connected to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force and “affiliated militia groups,” the U.S. military said in a statement. The Quds Force is Iran’s primary unit charged with conducting covert operations outside Iran.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Ark.) and Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) welcomed the strikes but said they were too little, too late.

“It is past time for our commander-in-chief to adopt a new approach that targets the actual sponsors of terrorism in the region,” Wicker, the lead Republican on the Senate Armed Service Committee, said in a statement.

“The Biden admin must be decisive with sustained retaliatory strikes and begin to enforce oil and other sanctions to cut off the source of terror funding,” McCaul, the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement.

Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), a member of the SASC, said: “These strikes, announced well in advance, likely did not accomplish nearly enough to stop Iran’s axis. Whatever next steps the President takes must be significantly stronger.”

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), also a SASC member, posted: “Finally. Iran needs to know the price for American lives.”

Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), posted: “To restore effective deterrence, President Biden must hit Iran where it hurts. Weak, telegraphed responses will not cut it. We need leadership, not appeasement.”

However, Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), SASC chair, said in a statement: “This was a strong, proportional response. In fact, the 85 targets struck tonight mark a greater number than the prior administration. Iran’s proxy forces in Syria and Iraq have been dealt a significant blow, and Iranian-linked militias around the Middle East should understand that they, too, will be held accountable.”

Military veterans from both parties were quick to air their opinions.

Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.), a former member of the U.S. Army Special Forces, posted: “It’s a huge expenditure of precision munitions from increasingly depleted stockpiles that are needed in the Indo-Pacific.”

Navy veteran Rep. Jen Kiggans (D-Va.) wrote that the strikes must “kneecap” Iran’s presence and threats against Americans.

Meanwhile, Rep. Austin Scott (D-Ga.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, wrote in a post: “I applaud the bravery and skill of @CENTCOM, who carried out multiple airstrikes against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force and affiliated militia groups today.”

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) posted that Biden, in ordering the strikes, had “circumvented Congress.”

“Our troops need to come home. Our president needs to follow the constitution,” she added.