The campaign arm of the 38-member Congressional Hispanic Caucus, BOLD PAC, announced this week the release of a political ad against Rep. Beth Van Duyne of Irving.
The 30-second digital ad titled “Spreading Lies,” goes after Van Duyne for her vote against certifying the 2020 Electoral College results in Arizona, hours after the Capitol attack in January.
“When an extremist mob attacked the Capitol, Congresswoman Beth Van Duyne was forced to hide,” the ad states. “But hours later, with blood still on the floors of the Capitol, she voted with Trump and helped spread the same lies that left a police officer dead and many others injured. They deserve better than Congresswoman Beth Van Duyne.”
Similar English-Spanish ads are being released against Reps. Carlos Gimenez (FL-26), Mike Garcia (CA-25) and Yvette Herrell (NM-02).
They are some of the first ads of the 2022 election cycle, and all of them target freshman Republicans who narrowly won their first election — in California’s 25th congressional district, for example, Garcia defeated his Democratic opponent by only 333 votes.
Van Duyne’s Fort Worth-Dallas area district is the only one among them previously held by a Republican incumbent.
In 2020, Van Duyne’s victory against former school board member Candace Valenzuela by a margin of one percentage point was the closest congressional race in Texas of that cycle.
As a newly elected Republican in the minority, Duyne has had few meaningful votes in Congress, other than her vote to not certify the election results. She was joined by 16 other Texas Republicans, including five other freshman lawmakers sent to Congress from Texas.
More recently, Duyne backed the removal of Rep. Liz Cheney as chair of the House Republican Conference, the third-highest leadership position among the House GOP. Cheney, a loyal congressional ally to Trump herself, was ousted for pushing back against false claims of a stolen presidential election.
In a statement, BOLD PAC Chair Ruben Gallego (AZ-07) said Van Duyne led a misinformation campaign on social media and conservative news media that helped spread the “Big Lie.”
“She tried to undermine our democracy and, in doing so, she helped incite the insurrection,” Gallego said. “The best way to fight the Republican disinformation campaign is to hold her accountable for her actions.”
“This is an important issue for BOLD PAC because misinformation campaigns continue to target the Latino community through their use of Spanish language media,” he said.
Misinformation is nothing new for Duyne, who during her tenure as Irving mayor, spread a Brietbart hoax about a “Sharia Law Court” operating in the city, and supported the arrest of a 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed for bringing a digital clock he built to school believed by police to be a “hoax bomb.”
Photo: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Fernando covers Texas politics and government at the Texas Signal. Before joining the Signal, Fernando spent two years at the Houston Chronicle and previously interned at Houston’s NPR station News 88.7. He is a graduate of the University of Houston, Jack J. Valenti School of Communication, and enjoys reading, highlighting things, and arguing on social media. You can follow him on Twitter at @fernramirez93 or email at fernando@texassignalarchive.com
