A dark money group affiliated with Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) is out with a new television ad applauding Sen. Jacky Rosen (D., Nev.) for her ostensible efforts to secure the southern border.
It’s high praise for Rosen, who established an extensive voting record against border security measures after joining the Senate in 2019. But with a difficult reelection bid on the horizon in November, Rosen has since turned her focus to the border in recent months, just as the illegal immigration crisis has emerged as a major electoral issue.
The ad from Duty and Honor, a 501(c)(4) dark money affiliate of Schumer’s Senate Majority PAC, praised Rosen for supporting the failed Senate border deal in January, which would have allowed for more than 1.8 million illegal crossings every year. The group also praised her End Fentanyl Act, a measure President Joe Biden signed into law in March, which requires U.S. Customs and Border Patrol to update its drug interception policies.
"Tell Senator Rosen, stay strong, keep fighting to protect the border," the ad states. Duty and Honor has reserved $1.8 million in ad space to support Rosen’s reelection bid, AdImpact reported in June.
But the crisis at the southern border is somewhat of a newfound interest for Rosen, who could be in for one of the closest Senate contests in the upcoming elections. The illegal flow of fentanyl across the southern border is an issue Rosen has only been focused on for "several months" at the tail end of her first term in the Senate, according to a report she highlighted on her official Senate website in June.
The Cook Political Report shifted its rating of Rosen’s reelection contest from "lean Democrat" to "toss up" in April. Rosen currently holds a six-point lead over her Republican opponent, Army veteran Sam Brown, in the RealClearPolitics polling average.
Rosen was a steadfast supporter of President Joe Biden’s lax border security policies at the onset of his administration in January 2021. Rosen praised Biden on his first day in office for reversing several Trump-era immigration policies, including his immediate pause in border wall construction and repealing "harsh and extreme interior immigration enforcement."
"On day one, President Biden is already hard at work to enact an agenda that will help to improve the lives of Nevadans and help restore the soul of our nation," Rosen said, citing his orders to preserve the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and "prioritizing comprehensive immigration reform."
And as the Biden administration adamantly insisted that there was no crisis at the southern border, Rosen voted against several amendments in the Senate that sought to stem the tide of fentanyl across the southern border.
For example, in August 2022, Rosen was the deciding vote to kill an amendment to the Inflation Reduction Act that would have provided $500 million to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to boost the agency’s capabilities to detect fentanyl and other synthetic opioids. The amendment failed on a 50-50 vote.
But Rosen changed her tune after public opinion polling showed that the crisis at the southern border was shaping up to be a major issue in the 2024 election.
In late May, Rosen sent a letter to Biden urging him to use his executive authority to secure the southern border and stop the flow of fentanyl into the country. She further sought to distance herself from the president in a post on X, formerly Twitter, calling the situation at the border "untenable."