House Republicans are quietly pulling the plug on a New York swing-seat candidate they'd been backing for months, and sources told Axios a resurfaced post celebrating his grandfather's Nazi military service is one of the biggest reasons why.
Congressional Leadership Fund, the GOP's main House super PAC, canceled nearly $5 million worth of TV airtime it had booked to boost state Sen. Peter Oberacker's campaign, according to ad tracking firm AdImpact. The National Republican Congressional Committee also quietly dropped Oberacker from its "MAGA Majority" target list, Axios reported.
The move effectively abandons New York's 19th District, a perennial battleground seat throughout much of the south-central part of Upstate New York, currently held by freshman Democratic Rep. Josh Riley, that the NRCC was still publicly touting as a top pickup opportunity just last month.
Multiple Republican sources told Axios that Oberacker was simply too flawed a candidate to make the race worth the investment. Chief among the concerns: a 2015 Facebook post in which Oberacker praised his grandfather's military service in Nazi Germany, explaining that "I salute all who served." Sources also flagged his campaign's shaky finances — Oberacker has reportedly burned through the majority of what he'd raised this cycle, with a large chunk going toward political consultants rather than voter outreach.
One Republican source explained the calculation bluntly, saying of Riley, "It's not like he's got a lot of enemies, and he raises money — it's just a hard environment, hard to argue." The source added that Oberacker's internal polling already had him trailing, and combined with the Nazi controversy, the overall picture simply wasn't promising.
Another House Republican was even blunter about the party's real priorities this cycle, telling Axios that insiders who understand New York's map know only GOP Rep. Mike Lawler and Democratic Reps. Tom Suozzi and Laura Gillen were ever genuinely considered competitive races.