Terri Bonoff Goes After Donald Trump in First Campaign Ad

Today, State Senator and 3rd District Congressional Candidate Terri Bonoff released her first television ad of 2016, entitled "Step Up."

Bonoff doesn't mention her opponent, incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen, in the ad, but she does go after Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Bonoff, DFL-Minnetonka, has been in the Minnesota Legislature since winning a special election in November 2005. In April, she announced she would be leaving the Legislature and challenging Paulsen.

Minnesota's 3rd Congressional District includes much of the western Twin Cities metro, including St. Louis Park, Maple Grove, Minnetonka, Hopkins, and Plymouth.

Bonoff contends that Paulsen hasn't done enough to push back against extreme elements in his own party, including Trump, who she's tried to make a centerpiece of the campaign.

In her new ad, Bonoff talks about her time in the Legislature, positioning herself as a moderate voice. The commercial concludes saying "Now I'm running for Congress, and I approved this message because we need to step up and stand up to Donald Trump.”

Paulsen, who's held the seat since first being elected to it in 2008, is also positioning himself as a moderate while trying to paint Bonoff as an extreme fiscal liberal.

"During last month’s debate hosted by the TwinWest Chamber of Commerce, Bonoff denied voting for a $1 billion tax increase in 2009 she actually did vote for, doubled-down on her vote to bring Obamacare and its crippling premium increases to Minnesota, and tried to claim she may not support Nancy Pelosi for Speaker just a few days before attending a fundraiser at her house," read a recent news release from the Paulsen campaign.

Bonoff responded just days later.

“In my eleven years in the Minnesota State Senate, I have been proud of the reputation I’ve earned for being a fiscally conservative Democrat, and the recent attacks on me are nothing more than grasping at straws by someone who is more jostled than he’d like us to think," she said in a statement.

“Here are the facts. When the billion-dollar tax hike was proposed in 2013, I was one of only a handful of Democrats to vote NO. In fact, I even came back the next year and was the Chief Author to eliminate many of the taxes put in place, including an exemption for small businesses."

Image: ellencanderson via Flickr /Creative Commons