By Jessica Mathews / news@whmi.com

The first political television ad in the 8th District congressional race has immediately drawn a contentious response from both campaigns.

Republican challenger Paul Junge of Brighton released his first television ad of the general election titled “Politics Aside” that targets incumbent Democrat Elissa Slotkin of Holly. The Slotkin campaign immediately denounced it as “misleading and tired”, saying it repeats a “failed” attack against Slotkin from the 2018 campaign.

A press release states Junge’s 15-second ad, uses an abbreviated clip from an October 2018 speech in which Slotkin mistakenly reversed her call to put country before party, then immediately corrected herself. In the final days of the 2018 campaign, a Republican group reportedly aired $1 million in attack ads repeating the clip without Slotkin’s correction. A WXYZ-TV “Truth Test” at the time labeled the ad "deceptive." Slotkin for Congress spokesman Gordon Trowbridge said “Paul Junge’s ad is not only intentionally misleading, it’s not even original.”

Junge’s Campaign Manager Rob Wagener responded by saying "Misleading is an excellent description of Congresswoman Slotkin and certainly the people of the 8th district are tired of her deception. She is not the independent minded person she promised as a candidate - instead she votes 96% of the time with Nancy Pelosi.”

Slotkin earlier told WHMI that’s a standard talking point people are using but her record speaks for itself and has passed 9 bills into law that were all bi-partisan and introduced another 22 into the House that were also all bi-partisan. She added that “it would be easier if Mr. Junge were running against Ms. Pelosi, but he’s not. He’s running against Elissa Slotkin.”

Junge’s ad is running on Detroit and Lansing broadcast and cable channels. The link is provided.