A leading conservative group is spending $200,000 over the next week to help Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) beat back a vigorous primary challenge.

The American Action Network says it will spend nearly $150,000 on a TV ad in Shuster’s western Pennsylvania district. In addition, it’s paying for digital advertisements and get-out-the-vote phone calls. The ad touts Shuster’s conservative bona fides, and like the group’s other ads this cycle, does not mention that Shuster is the incumbent.

A typical voter will see the AAN ad at least 10 times before the April 24 primary, based on the group’s spending level.

Shuster, the chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, is facing a vigorous challenge from tea-party backed candidate Art Halvorson. Shuster is clearly taking the race seriously. He has spent $500,000 on TV ads and debated Halvorson on Saturday. Shuster has $1.3 million in the bank, compared to Halvorson’s paltry $31,000.

AAN polled the race in February and again two weeks ago, and both surveys showed Shuster above 50 percent, the group said. But Donald Trump is expected to do well in Shuster’s district, which could help boost Halvorson’s support.

“We did polling in this district and much like the previous primaries we did polling in, Bill Shuster is in strong position to be re-elected,” said Mike Shields, the president of the American Action Network. “We want to make sure. And so that’s why we are going in, to be cautious. We want to ensure we can put him over the top and ensure that he is safe.”

Shuster is a mainstay in the district. He has held the seat since 2001, and his father represented the area from 1973 to 2001. But Halvorson is trying to seize on Shuster’s romantic relationship with Shelley Rubino, a top lobbyist for Airlines for America, the leading trade group representing U.S. airlines.

As chairman of the transportation committee, Shuster has direct oversight over aviation policy. At Saturday’s debate, Halvorson blasted Shuster for “cavorting” with a lobbyist who attempts to influence his committee. Shuster has touted the infrastructure projects he has helped bring to the district, while attempting to portray Halvorson as a carpetbagger.

espite the topsy -turvy political climate, not a single incumbent has lost a primary challenge this year. AAN or its super PAC affiliate, the Congressional Leadership Fund, has spent money on behalf of two other Republican lawmakers this cycle: Kevin Brady in Texas and John Shimkus in Illinois.

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John Kasich is not a quitter.

That’s the message of a new television ad released in Pennsylvania by New Day for America, a Super PAC supporting the Ohio governor.

“John Kasich was born right here in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania,” the 30-second spot starts, citing a western Pennsylvania town. “The son of a mailman, he’s fought for everything he’s achieved in life. So when Trump and Cruz whine that Kasich should quit the race, John says: You quit.”

Last month, billionaire businessman Donald Trump released his first attack ad against Kasich ahead of the state’s primary, criticizing his connections to Wall Street during the collapse of Lehman Brothers; Kasich worked as managing director in its investment banking division for a short period of time. Both Trump and Ted Cruz have said at times that Kasich should leave the race.

The New Day for America ad asserts that Kasich is the only one qualified to beat Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton in a general election.

“We don’t quit in Pennsylvania,” it concludes.

According to the latest RealClearPolitics average of polling, Kasich earns 20.5 percent of support among Republicans, compared to Trump and Cruz, who earn 39 and 32.3 percent respectively. Pennsylvania’s primary is April 26.

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OHIO GOV. JOHN KASICH IS HOPING TO PICK UP DELEGATES IN NEW YORK’S UPCOMING REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY

A pro-John Kasich super PAC released an ad Friday that suggests Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are mentally unfit to be president.

The commercial — which is from the group New Day for America and is titled “Crazy” — is set to Patsy Cline’s 1961 country song “Crazy.”

It begins by noting that Cruz was once told by his father, Rafael Cruz, that he was anointed by God to serve in a powerful position.

The ad then turns to Trump, highlighting his support for creating a database of Muslims living in the U.S. and his openness to using nuclear weapons against Europe. It also points to Trump’s remarks that, if abortion were to be outlawed, women who receive the procedure should be punished. (Trump later recanted the abortion remarks.)

“Is that the best we can do? No, it’s not,” a voiceover says, before cutting to an image of Kasich, who is described as “stable” and “presidential.”

The ad pivots to Kasich’s message that he’s the most electable remaining GOP candidate, pointing to polling indicating that while Cruz and Trump would struggle against Hillary Clinton, Kasich would fare better.

The commercial is scheduled to run in New York and Pennsylvania as part of a more than $1 million ad buy. The two upcoming primary states are rich with delegates. Kasich, who is trailing in the GOP contest, is making an aggressive push in both states, believing that they fit his moderate approach.

The Kasich super PAC has aired a number of tough ads, including one recently that labeled Cruz “lyin’ Ted.” Kasich distanced himself from the commercial, asking for the super PAC to remove it.

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Drones, long used in actual warfare, are now being deployed in political battles.

Campaign advertising gurus are using small versions of the unmanned aircraft to shoot footage of a fly-fishing candidate, scenic shots of a downtown and a marina, a pol walking near wind turbines, and other promotional images. But the relatively cheap, flexible technology has its downsides: one nearly crashed into Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, for instance.

And — as in violent conflicts — the legality of using drones for filming ads isn’t totally clear.

Veteran GOP ad-maker Fred Davis, a pioneer of using drones for campaign ads, said the camera-equipped aerial vehicles, many of which are very small, “can do things that even a helicopter can’t do, and … at an unbelievably reasonable price.”

“They can fly through an open window, they can fly inside,” Davis said. “They can fly up and down stairways. They can get really close to things — say, a church steeple or a tree. We’ve done them in factories, where they go through small openings into big rooms in factories.”

Drones have already been infiltrating other realms — Hollywood uses them, news organizations are getting in the game and even Amazon hopes to have a drone delivery service.

It’s hard to quantify how many political ads have been filmed using drones because the technique is still fairly new and its use remains limited to a relatively few firms. But because the cost of using drones has dramatically fallen, ad makers expect their use to increase in the 2016 cycle, including possibly in some presidential campaigns.

Ad makers say drones can give a more polished, cinematographic look with sweeping aerial shots that can make the TV spots stand out from the usual slash and burn of dark negative commercials. They could follow a candidate’s campaign bus down a road, take beauty shots of different places he’s visited and snap images of where he grew up.

“If I was going to do it, I would have two drones come up and fly over the top of the biggest rally of people I could put together and fly right above the guy speaking and over the top of all these people supporting me,” said Casey Phillips, co-founder of GOP firm RedPrint Strategy.

He cautioned, however, that footage from drones doesn’t always match the quality of footage from regular cameras, so top candidates, especially those running for president, will probably still send photographers on helicopters to get the occasional aerial shot, even if it is more expensive.

High winds and other factors can also make drones a bit of a risk.

Davis hired a drone pilot who, on a windy August 2013 day, lost control of a camera-carrying drone as it flew down an outdoor stairway with Snyder, the Republican governor of Michigan. “It went way too far, and Rick had to jump out of the way,” said Davis, who’s based out of Hollywood. “It crashed out into a million pieces.”

Snyder’s security team wasn’t happy.

Some in the political realm have been using the technology for footage beyond ads.

David Bossie, president of Citizens United, hired a drone controller last year to shoot scenes of Guatemalan villages for a documentary on a trip that Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) took to perform eye surgery on residents there.

“My team wanted to get the full experience of the poverty these people live in — to get some beautiful shots of ancient churches and the architecture,” Bossie said.

Drones used in political ads can vary in price from $1,200 to over $10,000 depending on their weight and stability, according to Phillips and Davis. Tiny GoPro cameras and competing models have improved the quality of drone footage, although a ground-based shot is still much sharper.

Some of the drones ad makers are using aren’t too different from the radio-controlled toys that show up as Christmas gifts for children.

“The things we’re using are hobby electronics,” said Brad Todd of On Message Inc. “There’s literally no mechanical difference between them and a little toy helicopter a kid would use.”

In at least one case, a drone was a featured character in a campaign ad.

Matt Rosendale, a Republican House candidate from Montana, used a rifle to shoot down a drone to make the point that he didn’t like how the government uses the technology.

“Spying on our citizens? That’s just wrong,” he said in the April 2014 spot. “I’m ready to stand tall for freedom and get Washington out of our lives.”

The Federal Aviation Administration has already missed a Jan. 1 deadline to propose rules for the commercial use of small drones. The proposal is expected soon, perhaps within the month. Until then, the agency has issued case-by-case exemptions to filmmakers and other select industries. In an email, FAA spokesman Les Dorr said: “If you are flying a model aircraft/UAS [unmanned aircraft systems] for hobby or recreational purposes, you don’t need FAA authorization but you must operate safely according to the law … Any use other than hobby or recreational flying needs approval from the FAA.”

Political ad firms, which are for the most part not waiting for exemptions to use the drones, have so far been counting on the FAA to overlook their small-scale use of the gadgets, just as the FAA has turned a blind eye toward lots of other drone operators. But some ad makers who have turned to drones worry about being made a test case by the government for unauthorized use of the contraptions.

“The legality of this stuff is just very much up in the air,” said one ad maker who spoke on condition of anonymity. “We wouldn’t want to do anything that got one of our clients in the soup for something, or drew negative attention to them.”

The U.S. Senate candidate who once “dabbled in witchcraft” has brought onto her campaign team an ad man infamous for making demons out of sheep.

Delaware GOP Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell has tapped the California-based Fred Davis and his Strategic Perception Inc. to produce commercials for her underdog battle against Democrat Chris Coons, her campaign has confirmed to POLITICO.

Reached while shooting an ad for Arizona House candidate Ben Quayle, Davis said working for O’Donnell will be an “interesting challenge.”

“A great campaign team and people I know who know O’Donnell well think the world of her,” Davis said.

In addition to Quayle and O’Donnell, Davis is working for California GOP Senate nominee Carly Fiorina, whom he produced a “demon sheep” Web video for during the primary that went viral on cable news and in political circles. The ad featured a man dressed in a sinister sheep costume to drive home the point that Fiorina’s primary challenger, Tom Campbell, was a wolf in sheep’s clothing on fiscal issues.

A spokeswoman for O’Donnell also said the campaign has also hired conservative Washington lawyer Cleta Mitchell to serve as the team’s attorney. A former state representative in Oklahoma, Mitchell has advised candidates, corporations and nonprofits on election and campaign finance law for more than three decades.

“She works with some of the biggest organizations in the movement,” said O’Donnell spokeswoman Diana Banister.

Banister would not confirm whether any other hires were imminent: “No big names but a lot of volunteers and supporters making their way to Delaware to help whatever way possible.”

O’Donnell heads into the general election facing a double-digit deficit, according to polls taken since her stunning Sept. 14 victory over nine-term Rep. Mike Castle. This week, Castle left on the table the possibility of mounting a write-in campaign, a prospect he will poll before settling on a final decision, according to a Republican with knowledge of the plan.

For his part, Coons has mostly stayed out of the fray when it comes to O’Donnell and her litany of controversial statements and financial woes. His campaign went up with a new 30-second TV ad Friday that says Coons will “end the bailouts,” halt tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas and work to impose a lifetime ban on senators becoming lobbyists.

HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Fred Davis III has little use for the trendy liberalism that dominates the Hollywood political scene. After all, he’s a leading ad-maker for the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), busy demonstrating his conservative bona fides to Republican primary voters. And Davis’ longest-standing client is his uncle, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), a leading skeptic of global warming.

But when it comes to the lefties’ creative prowess, Davis has only praise. The opportunity to take the best of the entertainment industry’s cutting-edge technologies and apply them to political campaigns keeps this son of Tulsa based in Hollywood while many of the media consulting heavy hitters remain clustered around Washington, seemingly reinforcing conventional wisdom about ad-making among themselves.

“This is a much more advanced creative thinking place,” Davis said. “The technology I use here will be in D.C. any time.”

His firm, Strategic Perception Inc., is among several GOP media consulting heavyweights signed up for McCain’s presidential campaign. The others include the Stevens and Schriefer Group, Mark McKinnon and Stevens Reed Curcio & Potholm.

McCain’s campaign probably needs all the creativity Davis can muster to turn around perceptions that it has run off track, plagued by lower than expected fundraising totals during the first quarter of 2007, continuing fallout from his support of President George W. Bush’s Iraq troop “surge” policy and lingering distrust among conservative activists.

That’s where Davis comes in, because he has created some of the more memorable ads of recent election cycles. Consider the 2002 spot that helped Sonny Perdue win the Georgia governorship in one of that election cycle’s biggest upsets. The ad featured a giant rat romping through the Peach State, representing Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes’ alleged imperiousness. The commercial became a breakout moment for Perdue, a little-known former state senator. Though outspent 6 to 1, the “King Roy” ad proved to be the great equalizer in the challenger’s upset victory.

Creation of the ad was a major production and, according to colleagues, vintage Davis. It used set construction in Nashville, myriad special effects, helicopters and a Lear jet mounted with cameras strafing Georgia cities and the countryside, and a $40,000 custom-made rat suit, complete with its own air-conditioning system. (Davis got the cost cut in half to $20,000 by returning it at the end of the year to the Hollywood costume shop that made it.) Production took 45 days.

Davis’ ideas are extraordinarily unique and creative, said Glen Bolger of the GOP polling firm Public Opinion Strategies, who also worked on Perdue’s 2002 campaign. “He’s more willing to take risks than many other consultants.”

Davis also created some of the more talked about ads in the 1994 election cycle, for his uncle, then-Rep. Inhofe, when he ran for the Senate against Democratic Rep. Dave McCurdy. One of the ads used cutting-edge technology to morph McCurdy’s face into that of President Bill Clinton, a very unpopular figure in Oklahoma. Another spot depicted a decrepit family sitting on their back porch in Oklahoma, drinking beer and watching a bug zapper for entertainment; the ad brought to life a statement McCurdy once made in Washington, apparently ridiculing his constituents.

The ads “were instrumental in Jim’s victory,” said Rick Shelby, a political consultant who worked for Inhofe and is now with the American Gas Association. “If you can use humor to take the edge off, it makes them far more effective.”

Not all of Davis’ moves have been winners. In 1996, he worked for the presidential campaign of Republican candidate Morry Taylor, a Midwestern industrialist who made a quixotic bid that quickly sank. Perhaps the ad man’s biggest misstep came in 1998 with a commercial on behalf of Mitch Skandalakis, running for lieutenant governor of Georgia. Mark Taylor, Skandalakis’ Democratic opponent, had acknowledged using cocaine and marijuana in the early 1980s while in his 20s. The attack ad showed the sign in front of the Ridgeview Institute, a Georgia drug rehabilitation center, as an announcer said, “Taylor, of course, has admitted he had problems years ago. And we all wish those problems had been cured.” The ad featured an actor who resembled Taylor dressed in a tattered robe, shuffling down a long hall.

Taylor denounced the ad, insisting he had never been a rehab patient. The spot drew waves of negative attention to Skandalakis. Davis had to admit the source who suggested Taylor’s drug problems continued into the ’90s proved unreliable. Skandalakis immediately sank in the polls and lost to Taylor 56 percent to 39 percent. Taylor was so enraged over the ad that shortly before Election Day he sued Skandalakis for libel. The rivals ultimately settled the case, with Skandalakis agreeing to pay $50,000 to a charity.

Davis, 55, grew up in Tulsa, where his father owned a small PR firm. Davis attended Trinity College in San Antonio, but while he was visiting home at Christmas in his freshman year, his father died of a heart attack. That left Davis to take care of his three siblings. He put school on hold while trying to eke out a living for the family.

“We went from comfortably middle class to ‘Uh-oh, what do we do now?'” he said.

Though Davis had no background or formal training in PR or advertising, he persuaded a couple of his father’s clients to stay with him and found he had a knack for the business. He took advertising classes at night and, by age 21, had expanded the business to more than 50 employees.

While commercial advertising paid the bills, Davis wanted to focus on “things that I thought were important on a deeper level.” The chance to do just that came in 1974, when Inhofe — a state legislator for eight years — ran for governor.

“Jim came to me,” Davis recalled. “He didn’t have any money.”

Inhofe won an upset GOP primary victory but was overwhelmed 64 percent to 36 percent by Democrat David Boren, who would go on to serve as a U.S. senator.

For his work on his uncle’s campaign, Davis got $11,000 and, more importantly, placement on the political map. “He found he had incredible talent,” Inhofe said.

Throughout the next decade, Davis made his living primarily on commercial accounts but continued to experiment with commercial advertising techniques in politics. Inhofe’s periodic campaigns provided plenty of testing ground in what were family affairs. During that period, Inhofe lost a 1976 congressional bid and then was elected Tulsa mayor in 1979, before being defeated five years later. In 1986, he was elected to the U.S. House for the first of five terms.

The year before, Davis had moved to Hollywood for the technological advantages, creative culture and weather. After rising through the ranks of Republican consultants, he made a splash on the national scene in 2004, when he was key ad-maker on the Bush-Cheney ’04 campaign. He then worked on California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 2006 reelection, which boosted his stock higher. “I had a good year last year, and most Republicans didn’t.”

Soon enough, all the major Republican presidential candidates were calling. Davis decided to go with the McCain campaign after being courted by its lead staffers, spending time with the candidate and speed-reading the senator’s memoir, “Faith of My Fathers.”

“I was really blown away with his background and the depth of his purpose,” Davis said.

Davis said he is unconcerned by McCain’s lagging fundraising totals and the problems he is having because the candidate supports Bush on the war in Iraq. Like the president’s 2000 and 2004 campaigns, a long-term game plan is in place to win despite bumps in the road.

Whatever the outcome, Davis’ ads for McCain, dreamed up high in the Hollywood Hills, far away from Washington, will not likely be cookie-cutter or routine.