A Wisconsin dairy farmer will make the case to voters in battleground states across the country for Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris by sharing her experience with cancer and the Affordable Care Act in a series of new ads.
Tina Hinchley, a dairy farmer from Cambridge — a little more than 20 miles east of Madison — speaks directly to the camera in one ad.
“Can I share something with you that is horrible? I would be better off dying instead of leaving my family generational debt,” she says. “There’s times when it’s in the back of my head that it would have been easier had I died. Then you don’t have to worry about the reoccurrence of another tumor, more bills every time you go for another checkup. All of it just keeps adding up and adding up.”
Hinchley was first diagnosed with a brain tumor “the size of a grapefruit” in 2006. In 2013, it had returned, along with a breast cancer diagnosis.
She credits the Affordable Care Act, the 2010 health care law also referred to as Obamacare, with saving her life and her business by providing her affordable coverage.
In 2017, congressional Republicans under Republican former President Donald Trump’s administration failed to overhaul the ACA. Trump has continued to criticize the law while campaigning for the 2024 election.
“We’re going to fight for much better health care than Obamacare. Obamacare is a catastrophe,” he said in a Jan. 6 campaign speech in Iowa.
The former president’s messaging around Obamacare has since waned, though. He said during last month’s debate against Harris that he’d only replace the Affordable Care Act if he sees a better and less expensive option. He could not offer the details of his plan and said he’d have more to add in the near future.
The Harris campaign has seized on those remarks, launching an ad this week quoting his statement that he has “concepts of a plan.”
“Farmers and people in the rural communities depend on affordable health care. Trump doesn’t care if he takes away health care from us. He doesn’t care what the consequences would be for me and my family,” Hinchley says in a radio spot, adding that Harris has pledged to protect and expand the ACA. “She fought for us to get health care, and she’s fighting for us to keep it.”
The ad is part of a $370 million fall paid media campaign from Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
It will air nationally during programming including the YellaWood 500 NASCAR Cup Series race, the American Music Awards and the 60 Minutes election special, as well as on local broadcast and cable in battleground markets, according to the campaign.”Winning rural voters means showing up and talking to them about the issues that matter most to their families,” said Harris-Walz director of rural outreach Matt Hildreth in a statement. “We’re leveraging our historic war chest and infrastructure across battleground states to relentlessly pursue persuadable voters in rural areas and red counties and cut into Trump’s margins. In an election that will be decided by a handful of votes in just a few key states, we’re leaving no stone unturned.”
A Marquette University Law School poll released last month showed that 5% of registered Wisconsin voters listed health care as their most important issue — but 49% of voters saw Harris as better on the issue compared to 36% who preferred Trump. A new poll is set to be released Wednesday.
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