Indiana Dems Make Last Ditch Effort to Split GOP Votes and Save Donnelly

Democrats launched ads and mailers supporting Libertarian candidate without campaign's approval

The Indiana Democrat Party is making a last-ditch effort to save incumbent Democrat senator Joe Donnelly by funding ads and mailers supporting the Libertarian candidate on the ballot in an attempt to split the vote in this heavily conservative state.

As first reported by the Daily Beast, the Indiana Democrat Party on Thursday began purchasing Facebook ads attacking Donnelly's Republican challenger, Mike Braun, as being insufficiently conservative on taxes and government spending. The ads, run through a page created on Oct. 31 called "Hoosier Conservatives," promote Lucy Brenton, the Libertarian candidate, as the "true anti-tax conservative" on the ballot.

Besides being paid for by the Indiana Democrat Party, the ads are "authorized" by Donnelly's campaign, meaning the senator sanctioned their use.

Around the same time the ads went live on Facebook, Democrats mailed thousands of fliers attacking Braun and boosting Benton to households across Indiana.

"I got two of the mailers last week alone, one on Thursday and the other Saturday," Cyril Herder, a conservative activist, told the Washington Free Beacon.

The mailers, which were sent by the Indiana Democrat Party but not authorized by Donnelly's campaign, accuse Braun of having "raised taxes 159 times" during his three-year tenure in the Indiana House of Representatives, voting for "special tax breaks" for timber and landowners, and supporting Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The mailer provides few details to back up its claims.

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