Ad-Watch: Wilson goes negative

Heather Wilson’s campaign is the first out of the gate with a negative ad on TV.

The ad echoes an attack on an Albuquerque billboard which goes after Heinrich for voting for the health care reform bill recently upheld as Constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Specifically, the a cites a provision called the Medical Device Tax and says that Heinrich had warned the Congressional leadership that the tax would lead to job losses in the medical device industry.

At the time of Heinrich’s letter, the tax would have been a 4.6 percent increase. The final bill included a tax at half that rate.

The Santa Fe New Mexican wrote:

Will the tax significantly harm the medical device industry? Bruce Carlson, publisher of health care market research firm Kalorama Information, told Health Care Finance News earlier this month, “I don’t think it’s crippling to this growing and innovative industry by any means. It is just a drag on their operations and ability to go to capital markets and show operating income growth, but growth will occur.”

As for the general charge that Heinrich is “extreme,” The National Journal, a Washington, D.C.-based weekly publication focused on politics and government, gave Heinrich a 69 percent “liberal composite score” last year, which means more than 30 percent of his fellow House members aligned with more liberal positions on legislation tracked by the magazine.

Going negative so early, three and a half months ahead of the election, shows that Wilson’s team knows they need to chip away at Heinrich’s favorability ratings among voters.

Wilson’s campaign is planning on painting Heinrich as an extremist (rankings generally show Heinrich in the middle of the pack of Democrats).

Heinrich’s campaign will likely try the same trick — trying to tie Wilson to the controversial Paul Ryan budget and plans to privatize Social Security.

You can watch the ad below: