Congress
TV station says it is ‘pulling’ GOP ad attacking Pennsylvania House candidate
A Harrisburg-area television station said it is “pulling” a controversial advertisement attacking Pennsylvania House candidate Janelle Stelson, who is locked in one of the country’s tightest House races.
The ad was sponsored by No Going Back, a group affiliated with the President Donald Trump-aligned MAGA Inc. super PAC. The ad raised an unsubstantiated public nudity allegation which Stelson — a longtime local broadcast journalist — denies. The PAC has spent $295,000 on the ad, which has aired on multiple local stations since Oct. 25, according data from ad-tracking firm AdImpact.
Stelson is facing Republican Rep. Scott Perry in the south-central Pennsylvania district. The No Going Back ad, and a similar spot from Perry’s campaign, have sparked significant local attention in the days before the election.
“We will continue to pursue every possible legal avenue to combat these verifiably false attacks that fail to meet the already miserably low standard of ethics Scott Perry has set for himself,” Stelson campaign manager Alma Baker said in a statement. “Perry should take the rest of his lying ads off the air.”
In a letter sent to stations airing the ad this week, lawyers for Stelson’s campaign and House Democrats’ campaign arm called the ad “false and defamatory” and demanded that it be taken down.
In a Wednesday morning email reviewed by Blue Light News, the general sales manager for ABC affiliate WHTM, Michael Nurse, informed lawyers that the station was “pulling the ad in question out of rotation as soon as we can” and noting the station did not receive a response from the advertising agency that placed the order.
In another email reviewed by Blue Light News, a representative for WGAL — the Harrisburg NBC affiliate where Stelson worked for over 25 years — said that they are “not airing” the ad.
Reached by phone, Nurse declined to comment. Other WHTM officials as well as spokespeople for WGAL did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A spokesperson for the Perry campaign referred a reporter to No Going Back PAC to answer questions about the ad. When reached for comment, a spokesperson for MAGA, Inc. shared two Oct. 28 letters from the super PAC’s attorney, Andrew Murphy, to local station managers and cable system operators saying “ad is true and must remain in rotation.”
While it is typical for officials to litigate campaign ads, it is highly unusual that television stations actually pull them down. A spokesperson for the DCCC said this is the first time this cycle that a campaign ad has been pulled by a station.
Aaron Pellish contributed to this report.