NRSC Hits “High Five Heidi” in New Radio Ad

It will be months before we know who the winner in North Dakota’s Senate race will be. Either Republican Kevin Cramer or Democratic incumbent Heidi Heitkamp will be in that Senate seat come January 2019.

We can declare one winner in February of 2018: Local media.

The ad buys in the race are already beginning in earnest, with the NRSC hitting “High Five Heidi” over her voting record:

The “high five” thing is, of course, a reference to Heitkamp celebrating with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on the floor of the senate after her vote against a bipartisan 20-week abortion bill is announced in the chamber.

A fact checker rather laughably concluded that this wasn’t a high five. “Typical high fives involve slapping of two hands in celebration,” the Pulitzer Prize winners at Politifact opined earlier this month. “This was a very gradual meeting of awkwardly waving hands.”

Or, you know, how old white people high five. Regardless of the mechanics of the high five, many voters of many divergent views on reproductive issues will probably see celebrating in the Senate chamber during a vote on an issue as serious as abortion to be pretty grody.

Anyway, get used to this sort of thing North Dakota. Ads like this are going to be inescapable in the coming months.