- Associated Press - Tuesday, July 14, 2020

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Gov. Roy Cooper touts his plan to respond to the coronavirus pandemic and criticizes his Republican challenger’s comments about COVID-19 in television ads broadcast Tuesday, the first of his reelection campaign.

The commercials, unveiled the same day the Democratic governor announced his plans for public school classes to resume next month, are the first of a $7 million statewide ad buy through the end of August, campaign spokesperson Liz Doherty said. The first two began running this week in the Charlotte and Greensboro TV markets.

Cooper has a large fundraising advantage over Dan Forest, the sitting lieutenant governor. Cooper’s campaign had $14 million in the bank as of July 1, while Forest’s committee had just $2 million. Forest began airing his first general election TV commercial last week.

In one ad, Cooper says his “priority is protecting lives” during the pandemic.

“We’ll ensure that testing is widespread, and we won’t let politics compromise safety,” Cooper says in the one-minute ad. “These are challenging times, but you deserve honest answers and decisive action, so we come out of this with a stronger economy that works for everyone.”

The other commercial largely plays TV sound bites from Forest about COVID-19 and calls him “dangerously wrong.” It also cites a newspaper report in which Forest said earlier this month that studies over the decades have concluded that “masks do not work with viruses.” Cooper and governors in other states have directed face covering mandates in public places.

“He continues to spew dangerous misinformation instead of putting the health and safety of North Carolinians first,” Doherty wrote in an email.

Andrew Dunn with the Forest campaign responded: “Gov. Cooper says pandemics shouldn’t be political, yet his first two TV ads are political ads about the pandemic.” Dunn also defended Forest’s comments on masks, saying the lieutenant governor was discussing “the conflicting advice on masks that our nation’s health leaders have given over the last four months.”

Forest’s first commercial showed footage of recent looting and civil unrest while the narrator calls North Carolina “in crisis” and in need of “a bold new choice.”

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