Ad Linking Democratic Senator to Christmas Parade Killings Sparks Backlash

A campaign ad linking Senator Tammy Baldwin, a Wisconsin Democrat, to Waukesha’s 2021 Christmas parade killings has sparked backlash.

The ad paid for by One Nation—a super PAC aligned with GOP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell—began airing in Wisconsin last week. The ad showed footage of the aftermath of Darell Brooks Jr. driving his SUV through the Waukesha Christmas parade route in November 2021. Brooks Jr. killed six people and was sentenced to six consecutive life sentences without parole.

The narrator of the ad said the incident “never should have happened” and mentioned that Brooks was released on $1,000 bail just a day before the killings after he allegedly tried to run over his girlfriend with the same car.

Baldwin is then shown on the Senate floor with the narrator saying she voted against funding for pretrial detention of violent criminals. The narrator says Baldwin’s vote made it “easier for criminals like Darrell Brooks to terrorize our communities.”

However, the vote was from August 7, 2022, nearly a year after the killings, and Baldwin had nothing to do with Brooks’ bail, which was requested by the Milwaukee County district attorney’s office and granted by a judge.

Waukesha Mayor Shawn Reilly condemned the ad on Wednesday, calling it a “pitiful political tool” that “doesn’t just hurt the families that had members that were killed, or those that were injured or those that even saw it, it hurts the whole entire community.”

“Unfortunately for the Waukesha community, our pain and our suffering from the 2021 Waukesha Christmas parade is once again being used by unprincipled people to drive votes,” Reilly told The Associated Press.

Reilly, a Republican turned independent who supports Baldwin’s reelection campaign, pointed to a statement by Baldwin and Senator Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, issued in the wake of the parade killings.

“I would hope that Eric Hovde would also support what Sen. Johnson said,” Reilly said. “No politician should allow the use of the Waukesha Christmas parade attack and its impact on our community to drive votes by creating fear and disgust to purposely create divisions.”

Hovde is Baldwin’s Republican challenger in November’s upcoming election. Baldwin’s seat is one of a handful that are considered to be crucial for Democrats to win to maintain their majority in the Senate.

Baldwin’s campaign spokesman Andrew Mamo also denounced the political ad, which ended with side-by-side images of Baldwin and Brooks in a prison outfit.

“Using the attack for political purposes is not only wrong, it is deeply hurtful to a community still recovering from the tragedy of that day,” Mamo said.

Newsweek reached out to One Nation and Hovde’s campaign via email for comment on Wednesday afternoon.

Wisconsin political columnist Dan Shafer wrote on X (formerly Twitter) in reaction to Reilly’s condemnation of the ad, “Glad to see Waukesha Mayor Shawn Reilly speak out on this. Not that this type of thing is unexpected coming from the right, but this ad is completely absurd and he is right to call it a ‘pitiful political tool.'”

This article includes reporting from The Associated Press.