Schwartz starts TV ads Monday
U.S. Rep Allyson Schwartz during a Democratic gubernatorial candidates forum Tuesday Feb. 4, 2014 in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Jacqueline Larma)
While every other candidate in Pennsylvania’s Democratic gubernatorial primary has gone up on television with TV ads, U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz has held her fire.
But she’s ready to start shooting. The Schwartz campaign will begin airing TV ads Monday in the Philadelphia market and elsewhere, a source close to the campaign tells me.
Schwartz stood in a distant second place in the Franklin & Marshall poll released this week, trailing Tom Wolf 33 to seven percent. Wolf has been running TV ads since early February.
Former state environmental secretary Katie McGinty has run ads since the state of the union address, though with far smaller ad buys that Wolf. State Treasurer Rob McCord went on the air two weeks ago.
Schwartz’s spokesman Mark Bergman declined to discuss the campaign’s media plans, but said he was confident Schwartz could overcome Wolf’s early lead.
“As voters of the state begin to focus and make their decision, they’ll see only one candidate with the proven leadership and experience to take on the old boys club in Harrisburg, and that’s Allyson Schwartz,” Bergman said.
There must be a ready audience for Schwartz’s TV ads: seven percent of Democrats in the Franklin & Marshall poll said they’d already seen one.
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