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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Ed Pilkington

Unregulated, unrestrained: era of the online political ad comes to midterms

A barrage of online ads paid for by a group of former members of Donald Trump’s inner circle has targeted John Fetterman, a Democrat running for Senate in Pennsylvania.
A barrage of online ads paid for by a group of former members of Donald Trump’s inner circle has targeted John Fetterman, a Democrat running for Senate in Pennsylvania. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

The advert is in grainy black and white, with an edgy horror movie soundtrack. As gunfights erupt in the streets, the narrator announces in a gravelly bass voice that John Fetterman, Democratic candidate for a US Senate seat in Pennsylvania, “has a love affair with criminals”.

Fetterman has voted “over and over to release the state’s most violent criminals, including murderers”, the narrator says. If elected, he would “keep the drugs flowing, the killers killing, and the children dying”.

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