It’s Mark Pryor’s fate that has Democratic leadership most worried. Gun control ads have Dems worrying

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s aides met recently with staffers of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to warn them: Targeting vulnerable Democrats like Arkansas’s Mark Pryor on gun control could backfire on the party, several sources told POLITICO.

It didn’t work.


Ads from the Bloomberg-funded Mayors Against Illegal Guns are going up soon in Alaska, Arkansas and North Dakota — three states with Democratic senators who broke with the White House on last month’s background checks vote.

The group is also moving as many as 60 field organizers into about a dozen states where senators — Democrats and Republicans — voted against bill, with the goal of building infrastructure and countering gun rights groups like the National Rifle Association.

( PHOTOS: January's Senate guns hearing)

It’s all got Democrats nervous about keeping their hold on the Senate, if they are under attack from not only Republicans but pro-gun control forces as well. Gun control legislation gained new national momentum since last December’s shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., that left 20 children and six adults dead, but advocates know they cannot overcome the power of the NRA on Capitol Hill unless those who oppose them pay an electoral price for doing so, and they’ve shown no sign of backing down.

Bloomberg’s group has made its choice: Its radio spots in Arkansas will target the state’s African-American community, “without which Mark Pryor doesn’t have a prayer of getting reelected,” said Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

( Also on POLITICO: The NRA's no-compromise strategy)

Four Senate Democrats — Pryor, Max Baucus of Montana, Mark Begich of Alaska and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota — joined with Republicans to derail the bill, drawing howls of protest from the gun control movement and complaints from the White House.

But it’s Pryor’s fate that has Democratic leadership most worried.

Senate Democrats point to the example of former Arkansas Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln as a warning. Labor unions, angered by Lincoln’s vote against legislation they backed, helped fund a primary challenger in 2010. Lincoln narrowly won that primary, and then was swamped that November by Republican John Boozman.

( Also on POLITICO: 2016ers to NRA: We'll stand firm)

Democratic senators and aides also note that Pryor has backed President Barack Obama and the leadership on other big issues such as Obamacare, banking reform and taxes, and Reid will need him on upcoming immigration votes.

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“How does hurting Mark Pryor help them?” asked one top Senate Democrat, speaking on condition of anonymity. “I just don’t see how it gets them where they want to go.”

For his part, Pryor says he’s not too concerned.

“In today’s world, whether it’s a wealthy donor or a super PAC, sometimes they come in these races and throw a bunch of money around,” Pryor said in an interview. “I think in Arkansas, people know me pretty well, and they know I work very hard to try to listen and be responsive to the state. I’m always going to have people make these political threats.”

But leadership would still rather see Bloomberg look elsewhere. For instance, it could work to reelect red-state Democrats who supported the background checks bill, such as Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Kay Hagan of North Carolina.

Another gun control group, Americans for Responsible Solutions — founded by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), who was severely wounded in a January 2011 shooting — is running radio ads praising these Democrats, as well as Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).

Senate Democrats are also urging Bloomberg and other gun control advocates to focus on flipping Republicans like Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire. Mayors Against Illegal Guns went up Tuesday with a TV spot criticizing Ayotte that will air through May 17 in the Boston and Manchester, N.H., media markets. It also plans ads aimed at Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.).

Americans for Responsible Solutions is running radio ads in Kentucky and New Hampshire, respectively, slamming Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Ayotte for opposing the measure. The NRA, which vehemently opposed the background checks bill, countered with its own radio ads praising the lawmakers.

In an op-ed that ran in the Houston Chronicle over the weekend — in the city where the NRA was holding its annual meeting — Vice President Joe Biden warned that senators who voted against the bill will be punished by voters next year.

“They are learning that Newtown really did shock the conscience of the nation and that inaction will not be tolerated by Democrats, Republicans or independents,” Biden wrote.

The White House has also threatened to use Organizing for Action — the nonprofit group created out of Obama’s reelection campaign — to target vulnerable Democrats like Pryor over the background checks vote.

On Heitkamp, who also voted against the background checks bill, Glaze said Mayors Against Illegal Guns must show there is a price to be paid for voting against the measure, even though she’s not up for reelection until 2018.

“It’s our job to make sure that people who care about this understand that she screwed up,” Glaze said

Democrats, though, fear that any public effort to “shame” Pryor would have two results: First, he will just dig in further and become less likely to support any revised background checks package; and second, Pryor would be hurt by the effort, leading to a Republican who openly opposes any gun control-related legislation — and other Democratic priorities — winning the seat.

Pryor — who had $3.4 million in his campaign coffers, including tens of thousands of dollars from other Senate Democrats — said he’s not worried about the fallout from his opposition to the bipartisan background checks bill drafted by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.). Democrats say privately that Pryor was aware before the April 17 vote that he would see Bloomberg-funded ads in Arkansas, with the only question being whether they would be pro or con.

“I think that’s one thing the American people are frustrated about, these purity tests,” Pryor said. “Quite honestly, I’m here to represent Arkansas. I think people on all sides, in all parties and all groups, they need to go back to civics class and maybe read the Constitution and realize we’re here to represent our states and the people who sent us to Washington.”

Pryor, first elected to the Senate in 2002, claimed he’s not worried about his poor poll numbers or possible challengers, including GOP Rep. Tom Cotton, or whether MAIG or other progressive groups dump money into the race.

“I get threatened politically all the time,” he said. “Literally, it’s just part of my job because I don’t line up in this ‘red versus blue’ paradigm. I’m in the middle somewhere.”

Republicans, for their part, were pleased that gun control groups would slam Pryor.

“Mark Pryor doesn’t know what he believes,” said Brad Dayspring, communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “The same guy voted for [an assault weapons] ban just a few years ago, so it’s no wonder that the Bloomberg group is trying to pressure him. The larger the spotlight on the Second Amendment and the gun issue is in Arkansas, the brighter Pryor’s blatant hypocrisy shines.”

As Manchin works to revise his bill, with an eye toward trying to get it back on the floor next month following Senate action on immigration reform, Pryor said he is open to looking at the legislation again.

“If someone wants to put something together, I will look at it and I’ll make a judgment based on what they put together,” Pryor said on Friday, according to KLRT-TV in Little Rock.