MANCHESTER, New Hampshire — Nikki Haley will hit New Hampshire airwaves with an unusually long, three-minute TV ad on Monday, highlighting her foreign policy credentials in a spot that will effectively function as her closing message in the state.
The emotionally-charged ad features the mother of Otto Warmbier, a young American who was imprisoned while visiting North Korea in early 2016. He fell into a coma during that time and returned to the United States 17 months later in a vegetative state, only to die days later.
His mother, Cindy, spoke in February at Haley’s presidential campaign launch, praising her supportiveness while she was ambassador to the United Nations, a position to which she was appointed by former President Donald Trump.
“I will tell you about her strength, her compassion, and her belief that every human being is worth fighting for,” Cindy Warmbier says in the ad, which features clips of her speech at Haley’s campaign launch. “I will tell you that Nikki didn’t help me because it was her job. She did it as a mom, a friend, and a fighter who made my fight her own.”
The ad does not mention Trump, whose administration worked to bring home Warmbier. But Haley throughout her campaign has sought to contrast her foreign policy positions with her former boss, in particular highlighting her tough stance toward North Korea and China and criticizing Trump for taking a friendly approach toward Kim Jong Un.
While longer than the usual 30-second or minute-long campaign spots, Haley isn’t the first candidate to run an extended ad. Now-President Joe Biden in 2020 ran two-minute long ads in both the primary and general election.
In 2008, Barack Obama’s presidential campaign took out a 30-minute ad — essentially a political infomercial about his platform — that ran simultaneously on broadcast and cable television stations. In 1992, Ross Perot ran his own half-hour infomercials.
A spokesperson for Haley’s campaign did not provide information on how much money the campaign is spending on air time, or on which channels it will run. The campaign told POLITICO it will run across New Hampshire.
