House Republicans accused a left-leaning outside group of disguising mailers as nonpartisan voter information guides sent to voters in a slew of House races that could decide control of the lower chamber.
The National Republican Congressional Committee, the House GOP’s campaign arm, called foul on mailers sent by the Center for Voter Information, a nonprofit group that styles itself as nonpartisan but was founded by longtime Democratic operative Tom Lopach.
The Washington Times has identified at least a dozen tight House races in which the nonprofit group has sent mailers to voters in the district.
The flyers label themselves as information guides from a nonpartisan group, but reduce candidates’ positions on complex issues to “yes” or “no” on a few words in ways that the NRCC calls tendentious and misinformation.
For example, in a blast of flyers sent to voters in battleground Pennsylvania, the mailer stated that Vice President Kamala Harris was a “yes” on cybersecurity, while former President Donald Trump was a “no.”
But in 2018, Mr. Trump unveiled the first update to the country’s cybersecurity preparedness in 15 years called the “National Cyber Strategy.”
Similarly, mailers sent to New York’s 19th Congressional District, where freshman Republican Rep. Marc Molinaro is running against Democrat Josh Riley, state that Mr. Molinaro was a “no” on supporting small businesses.
The citation is a tweet from 2022, before Mr. Molinaro even took office. While a member of the House, he has introduced a handful of bipartisan bills geared toward bolstering small businesses.
NRCC Chair Rep. Rich Hudson, North Carolina Republican, accused Democrats of “pulling every dirty trick in the book to subvert democracy as President Trump and House Republicans surge in the polls.”
“Their far-left liberal policies decimated Americans’ quality of life and led to a historic border crisis, but instead of owning up to their failures, Hakeem Jeffries and his backers are spreading egregious lies about Republicans,” Mr. Hudson said in a statement. “These gutter politics should be condemned immediately.”
Mr. Molinaro said in a post on X that the mailers were attempts to “suppress GOP votes.”
“It’s a flat out scam. Three things you should be aware of: Number one, all the claims they are making about me can be proven false. Number two, these mailers are being sent by a dark-money Democratic group, not a nonpartisan agency, like they claim,” Mr. Molinaro said. “And third, Republicans are being targeted nationwide with this mailer to suppress your vote.”
The Washington Times reached out to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the House Democrats’ campaign arm, for comment on the mailers.
Mr. Lopach, CEO of the Center for Voter Information, said in a statement to the Times that the group seeks “to help voting-eligible American citizens register and vote in upcoming elections.”
“The mailers that CVI has been sending out are full of factual information about candidates’ positions, backed up by citations and reliable source information,” Mr. Lopach said. “Any characterizations to the contrary are inaccurate.”
At the top of each mailer, the nonprofit said that it provided “important voter information to voters like you across the country.”
One mailer that targeted voters in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District offered images of Democratic Rep. Jared Golden, a three-term incumbent trying to keep his seat in a district Mr. Trump won by 6 percentage points in 2020, and Republican state Sen. Austin Theriault.
Citing votes on a variety of House bills, the mailer showed that Mr. Golden supported three issues — “keeping manufacturing jobs in America,” “checks on gun purchases” and “investing in small businesses” — while using tweets from Mr. Theriault purporting to show he was against those things.
The nonprofit used Mr. Golden’s support of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022 and a tweet from Mr. Theriault where he condemned the law, which did a lot more than invest in small businesses, to support the group’s claim that Mr. Theriault opposes “investing in small businesses.”
“A candidate’s position is sometimes more complicated than a ’yes’ or ’no,’” the mailer stated. “We have done our best to represent each candidate in a fair and reasonable way.”
Similar mailers have also cropped up in three New York races, including the contest in the Empire State’s 22nd congressional district where Democratic candidate John Mannion has the edge on Republican Rep. Brandon Williams, two races in Pennsylvania, two in Arizona and in races in Washington, New Mexico, Michigan and Florida.
The Center for Voter Information also sent a blast of mailers to voters in Pennsylvania that targeted the presidential race.
The nonprofit has spent $223,251 against Mr. Trump in this election cycle so far, according to campaign finance watchdog OpenSecrets.
• Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.