FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 9, 2020
Contact: Ally Livingston, alivingston@jeanneshaheen.org

ICYMI – Before “Colorado Corky” Messner moved to New Hampshire to buy a U.S. Senate seat, he was a die-hard Broncos fan, reports the Boston Globe. Now that he’s running for Senate in New Hampshire, he’s pretending to be a New England Patriots fan, but the photographs from his now-private social media tell a different story and his deception is the focus of a new Shaheen campaign digital ad campaign.

The Boston Globe also mentions this is not Colorado Corky’s first attempt to deceive voters, citing his fraudulent scholarship foundation and scandal-plagued candidacy. The Messner Foundation raised hundreds of thousands of dollars under the guise of funding scholarships for low-income students, yet only one student received a scholarship over the course of a decade. Messner is facing a potential criminal investigation in his home state of Colorado for defrauding donors and vulnerable students, yet he continues to tout this fraud on the campaign trail. 

“Corky Messner is a multimillionaire from Colorado who moved across the country to try to buy New Hampshire’s Senate seat,” said Shaheen campaign spokesman Josh Marcus-Blank. “From his lack of New Hampshire ties to his scam charitable foundation and his phony support for the Pats, everything about Corky Messner is fake. Voters deserve to know the truth: Corky Messner is not for New Hampshire.” 

These Colorado Corky ads will run on social media, Google and five websites frequented for Patriots news—NBC Sports Boston, Patriots Wire, Boston 25 News, Boston Globe/Boston.com and WMUR.

Boston Globe: Shaheen ad blitz tackles touchy issue: Is Corky Messner really a Patriots fan?

By Victoria McGrane

When you’re leading your challenger by double digits in the polls, it’s OK to have a little fun.

So, with the Patriots set to play the Denver Broncos on Monday evening, Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire is launching a five-figure ad campaign accusing her Republican challenger of being a “fake Patriots fan.”

The hook? Shaheen’s opponent, veteran and attorney Bryant “Corky” Messner, until recently lived in Colorado, and apparently was an enthusiastic Broncos fan, based on photos the GOP hopeful previously shared on social media.

Those pro-Broncos posts, featuring Messner clad in orange, aren’t open to the public any longer. But the Shaheen campaign has the photos, and they’re running with them.

“There’s a fake Patriots fan running for Senate in NH,” reads a sample ad reviewed by the Globe. It includes a photo of Messner in an orange Broncos shirt posing with other fans, under the label, ‘”Colorado Corky’ Messner.”

The gist of the cheeky ad campaign, which went live Friday, is that Messner is merely posing as a Patriots fan now, just like he’s pretending to live in New Hampshire in order to win a Senate seat.

It’s part of a broader effort by state Democrats — plus at least one of Messner’s GOP primary opponents — to label Messner as a rich “carpetbagger” trying to buy a Senate seat.

That wasn’t enough to sink Messner in the primary, in which he enjoyed the endorsement and backing of President Trump. But recent polls show him trailing Shaheen by double digits, and a similar narrative hurt Shaheen’s last Republican opponent, former Senator Scott Brown, who moved to New Hampshire after losing to Elizabeth Warren in 2012.

Messner, who built a successful law practice in Denver, made New Hampshire his permanent residence about two years ago, though he has owned a vacation home in Wolfeboro, N.H., for many years.

Messner pumped nearly $3.8 million of his own money into his primary campaign, which amounted to nearly 90 percent of what his campaign reported raising as of Aug. 19, the last time campaigns had to file with the Federal Election Commission.

Both he and Shaheen, who has set fund-raising records during the primary, are expected to raise lots in the dash to the Nov. 3 general election.

[…]

This is not the first time Messner’s relatively newfound love of the Patriots has come up in the campaign. In January, the New Hampshire Democratic Party circulated one of the photos of Messner wearing an orange Broncos jacket and hat at a game in 2014.

“Of course he’s a Patriots fan,” a campaign spokesman told the Union Leader at the time. And Messner’s twitter feed is full of pro-Patriots posts from the 2019 season, though none during the current season, it appears.

The Shaheen campaign will include social media ads targeting New Hampshire voters who support the Patriots on Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat; Google ads that pop up when people search for the NFL and the Patriots; and web ads on several websites that Patriots fans frequently turn to for their Patriots news, including BostonGlobe.com and Boston.com.

The ads, slated to appear through Monday, will direct viewers to a website with more material the Shaheen campaign believes shows his “fake” Patriot fan status, as well as some harder-hitting opposition research, including links to news stories that raise serious questions about a charitable foundation run by Messner.

A Washington Post story from July described years of misleading marketing by the Messner Foundation, which provided just one scholarship in its first 10 years of existence, according to the Post’s reporting.

The story prompted a former chief justice of the Colorado Supreme Court to request a criminal investigation into Messner’s charity.

“Corky Messner is a multimillionaire from Colorado who moved across the country to try to buy New Hampshire’s Senate seat,” said Shaheen campaign spokesman Josh Marcus-Blank. “From his lack of New Hampshire ties to his scam charitable foundation and his phony support for the Pats, everything about Corky Messner is fake. Voters deserve to know the truth: Corky Messner is not for New Hampshire.”

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