Fiasco: Heitkamp Ad Apologizing For Misidentifying And Outing Sexual Assault Survivors May Have Violated FEC Regs

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) might have ended her chances at re-election, which were already becoming dim as we approach Election Day. She’s trailing her Republican opponent, Rep. Kevin Cramer, by nearly double-digits. During the vicious battle over the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, Cramer made some controversial remarks on the Hill. Heitkamp saw an opening for an attack, and she fumbled—badly. Her campaign published a newspaper ad, in which an open letter listed survivors of sexual assault, but scores of these women did not authorize their names to be used—and some of the women named weren’t sexually assaulted (via AP):

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp apologized Tuesday for misidentifying victims of domestic violence, sexual abuse and rape who were listed in a recent North Dakota newspaper ad aimed at her opponent.

The Democrat, who is facing a tough race for re-election, said in a statement that she had recently learned that several of the women named in the ad either hadn’t authorized it or are not survivors of abuse.

“This was incompetent. It was wrong. It should have never happened,” Heitkamp told Rob Port, a conservative blogger and frequent Heitkamp critic on his radio talk show Tuesday. “It was a very flagrant error of the campaign and I own it.”

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