The NRCC launched its first TV spot against Democrat Dan McCready on Tuesday as part of what Politico says is a $2.6 million TV and radio reservation for the Sept. 10 special election in North Carolina’s 9th District, and they try to attack McCready with a newspaper called … Daily Kos?

No, you didn’t miss any big news about us unveiling a print edition. Instead, the commercial features a piece of paper with the Daily Kos name and logo, pictures of McCready and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, and the headline, “Warren helps McCready win his do-over election.” (That headline comes from a 2018 piece by a Daily Kos community member.) As you can probably guess, the ad tries to connect McCready to national Democrats as well as paint McCready as a political insider.

Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time a campaign has run a TV spot using the “newspaper” Daily Kos. During the 2016 Louisiana Senate race, Foster Campbell pushed back on attacks from fellow Democrat Caroline Fayard by showing several papers with unflattering headlines about Fayard, including a print edition of something called “The Daily Kos.” Last year, North Dakota Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp also ran a commercial that cited Daily Kos to make the argument that she was one of the most effective senators and a "force for rural America," though she did not present us as a newspaper.

The NRCC’s spot is the first commercial from national Republicans ahead of the Sept. 10 special election, but it won’t be the last. The Charlotte Observer reports that the Congressional Leadership Fund has also reserved $1.2 million. So far, though, the only major outside spending on McCready’s behalf was a $600,000 buy from the Environmental Defense Fund, and Politico says that major Democratic groups haven’t reserved any TV time. However, McCready held a huge $1.77 million to $344,000 cash-on-hand lead over Republican Dan Bishop at the end of June, so Team Blue may think he can afford to fend for himself for now.

Meanwhile, a scandal that Republicans very much want to put behind them reared its ugly head again on Tuesday when operative McCrae Dowless was hit with a second indictment from Wake County prosecutors. This time, Dowless was indicted for obstruction of justice and perjury. Dowless is at the center of the election fraud operation that aided 2018 GOP nominee Mark Harris: In February, the State Board of Elections invalidated those results and ordered this special election.

The GOP tried to steal this seat, but we can win it in September. Please chip in $3 to Democrat Dan McCready today!