Republican ad for Maine Senate race runs in Portland, Oregon by mistake
A Republican super PAC's attack ad on Maine Democrat Troy Jackson ran for four days in Portland, Oregon, after its ad buyer picked the wrong city with the same name.
A vendor picked the wrong city
The attack ad, titled "So Many Taxes", was created by Defending Main Street SuperPAC Inc. and accuses Troy Jackson, the Democratic Senate nominee in Maine, of raising costs for state residents through his tax policy. It was meant to reach voters in Maine, where Jackson is competing with Republican senator Susan Collins, who is seeking a sixth term. Instead the spot ran in Portland, Oregon, a city about 2,500 kilometres from Portland, Maine. According to Google advertising data cited by The New York Times, the ad was shown to more than a million viewers in Oregon and over 300,000 others in Washington State between Thursday, 8 October, and Sunday, 11 October. The ad ran on YouTube, and the error was traced to Cross Screen Media, the company the super PAC had hired to buy its airtime.
Cost and refund
Reports give slightly different spend figures. The Independent says as much as $25,000 was spent to run the spot in and around Portland, Oregon, and La Libre cites the same $25,000 figure, while The New York Times puts the cost at $25,900. A representative of Cross Screen Media told NBC News that the mistake was "100 percent" the company's own and that the money had been refunded, adding that the firm works with thousands of political campaigns. A spokesperson for the super PAC said the ad had been blocked and corrected once the error was identified, and that the buyer would reimburse Defending Main Street in full so that donor money would not be lost. Adnkronos describes the spot as part of a million-dollar digital campaign supporting Collins.
Reaction from the super PAC
Sarah Chamberlain, whom NBC News describes as chief executive of the Republican Main Street Partnership, which is linked to the super PAC, called the mistake "ridiculous" and said the ad was taken off the air after it was uncovered. The New York Times describes her as the super PAC's chief financial officer, so the titles differ across outlets. In comments to NBC News she distanced the group from the placement:
The buyers made a mistake on one of the placements. It's down now, and they're running it in Portland, Maine. It has nothing to do with us. I would never run an ad in Portland, Oregon, for Susan Collins, for Christ's sake.
Online mockery and the race
Oregon residents mocked the error on social media. One resident wrote on X on Sunday, 11 October, that they had received five anti-Jackson ads in 24 hours and chose to believe the buyers had "mixed up Portlands". Another X user wrote that the campaign would be "wildly effective" because no voter in Portland, Oregon, was going to back Jackson. Polls show Collins and Jackson locked in a tight race just weeks before Election Day.
Why there are two Portlands
Portland, Oregon, began as a settlement on land owned by Asa Lovejoy and Francis Pettygrove. The two co-owners could not agree on a name and settled the question with a coin toss. Pettygrove won and named the town after his hometown, Portland, Maine, while Lovejoy had wanted it to carry the name of Boston.
