Republican Barb Kirkmeyer went up with her first general election TV ad this week in Colorado’s 8th Congressional District.

Kirkmeyer, a state senator and former county commissioner from Brighton, is facing state Rep. Yadira Caraveo, a Thornton Democrat, in what’s shaping up to be one of the most competitive House races in the country.

Airing on broadcast stations in the Denver market, the 30-second spot focuses on Kirkmeyer’s support for the oil and gas industry, a mainstay in the district, which stretches from Adams County suburbs on the north side of the metro area to Greeley in Weld County.

“This work supports our community, funds local public schools,” says an energy industry worker identified as Tom from Adams County in the ad.

“But the liberal Democrats want to shut it all down,” he adds as an image of President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive New York congresswoman known as AOC, appears on screen. “They want to kill my job, hurt my community, and send these jobs overseas.”

Gesturing toward a different image – this time featuring Caraveo sandwiched between Biden and Pelosi, instead of Ocasio-Cortez, Kirkmeyer says: “And my opponent, Yadira Caraveo, she’s with them.”

Kirkmeyer says she’ll “stand strong for Colorado and protect those 15,000 energy jobs in Adams and Weld,” before a group of energy industry workers surround her and say they “stand with Barb – she’s Colorado tough.”

Kirkmeyer’s campaign is splitting the roughly $650,000 cost of an initial three-week buy with the National Republican Congressional Committee, which said last month it intends to spend $2.6 million in the 8th CD.

The airwaves are starting to get crowded in the district, considered a key race to determine which party will control the House after the November election.

Caraveo launched a $2.2 million TV ad campaign at the beginning of last week with a biographical spot depicting the pediatrician at work at her Thornton clinic.

Earlier this week, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s independent expenditure arm and the GOP’s Congressional Leadership Fund released negative ads, each describing the opposition candidate as too extreme for Colorado. Yet to enter the fray is the Democrats’ House Majority PAC, which announced $4.4 million in ad reservations this spring.

“CD 8 is filled with hard-working energy workers,” Kirkmeyer told Colorado Politics “I will be their advocate in Congress. Voters have a clear choice. Yadira Caraveo sponsored the most anti-energy bill in Colorado history and now she stands with Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, whose anti-oil and gas policies are punishing America’s energy workers.”

Kirkmeyer is referring to Senate Bill 181, legislation passed in 2019 by the Democratic-controlled Legislature. The bill, which gave local communities more control over energy development and toughened safety rules, was opposed by the oil and gas industry.

Ballots go in the mail to most Colorado voters in just over four weeks. They’re due back to county clerks by Nov. 8.