Hoosier businessman Mike Braun slammed Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-IN) in a press release on Monday for outsourcing jobs to Mexico ahead of a Monday Indiana Senate debate.
On Monday night, Braun and Donnelly will host the first hour-long Indiana U.S. Senate debate at 6:00 p.m. Eastern at Purdue University’s Northwest campus in Westville, Indiana.
Braun attacked the incumbent Democrat ahead of the debate for outsourcing jobs to Mexico, while the Indiana Republican has only worked to hire Hoosiers and increase their wages and benefits.
Last year the Associated Press (AP) reported that while Sen. Donnelly criticized Carrier Corp. for moving manufacturing jobs to Mexico, he profited from a family business that relied on Mexican labor to produce dye for ink pads.
Donnelly, during his first run for the House in 2004, railed against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and called “outsourcing,” “a fancy term for ‘Someone in Indiana has just lost their job.”
Sen. Donnelly even sponsored the End Outsourcing Act, which would require that businesses disclose jobs moved overseas, deny tax incentives to those companies, and require the federal government to take into account a company’s outsourcing practice when awarding contracts.
Braun told Breitbart News in an interview that in contrast to Donnelly, he hires exclusively in the United States and most of his suppliers for his business also come from America.
“I’ve built a business from very humble beginnings in my hometown, and he’s litigating the business trying to make me look like a heartless businessman,” Braun said. “Every one of my jobs is here in the U.S., I’m a supplier for auto and RV parts and accessories, 95 percent of the suppliers are American companies, so he’s taking a little molehill and turning it into a mountain there.”
Braun also chastised Donnelly for fundraising off of opposition to President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court then-nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh.
Josh Kelley, a spokesman for Braun, said that Donnelly is “cashing in” on his opposition to Kavanaugh to “advance his political career.”
The Indiana Senate race has become increasingly competitive; a Fox News poll found that Sen. Donnelly leads Braun by only two points, well within the survey’s margin of error.
The poll also revealed that Braun and Donnelly’s supporters have both suggested, at 39 percent each, that they are “extremely interested” in the Indiana Senate race, closing the previous Democrat lead in voting enthusiasm.
The Fox News poll also found that a plurality Hoosiers would find them likely to oppose Donnelly if he were to vote against Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court. Sen. Donnelly joined Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and 46 other Senate Democrats to oppose the president’s nominee.
Last year, the Center for Effective Lawmaking, labeled Sen. Donnelly the least effective Democrat in the Senate.
“Braun’s doer record is a stark contrast to career politician Senator Donnelly, the least effective Democrat in the Senate, who profits from his family business outsourcing Hoosier jobs to Mexico and consistently votes against doers like Mike Braun,” Kelly said in a statement in August.
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