A national Republican group on Tuesday unleashed attack ads on Ron Hanks, the state GOP-endorsed candidate running in Colorado’s crowded 3rd Congressional District primary, while accusing Democrats of “propping up” Hanks in order to produce a weaker nominee for the November election.

At the same time, in a move blasted by Republicans as “meddling” in the GOP primary, the Western Slope seat’s presumptive Democrat nominee, Adam Frisch, tapped his massive campaign war chest to launch an ad campaign attacking Jeff Hurd, one of Hanks’ primary rivals.

The competing volleys hit the airwaves a week before ballots are due in Colorado’s June 25 primary, when voters will decide which of six Republicans will face Frisch in the general election. The 3rd CD is currently represented by Republican U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, who moved to another district this year after coming within fewer than 600 votes of losing to Frisch in 2022.

Republicans say they’re pushing back against the Democrats’ attempts to pick their opponent in the GOP-leaning district, but Democrats counter that they’re instead informing voters that both of the seat’s leading GOP candidates are out of step with its voters.

“Why are liberals supporting Ron Hanks?” asks a 30-second TV ad released Tuesday by the GOP-aligned Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC associated with Republican U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana.

Calling Hanks “a bullseye for liberals” and “a misfire for Colorado,” the Republicans’ ad says, “Democratic mega donors are propping up his campaign with huge funding to elect another liberal to Congress.”

The progressive advocacy group Rocky Mountain Values has deluged the district’s airwaves since late May, spending around $400,000 on ads that tie the former state lawmaker to Donald Trump’s immigration agenda and call Hanks “too conservative for Colorado.”

Strategists say it’s a thinly veiled attempt to propel the underfunded candidate to the nomination by raising Hanks’ profile among the primary electorate’s more conservative voters, echoing a nearly identical ad campaign funded by Democrats two years ago, when Hanks ran unsuccessfully in a primary for the U.S. Senate.

“Why are Democrat mega donors spending so much to prop up Ron Hanks’ campaign? Republicans, beware,” Courtney Parella, the Republican group’s communications director, told Colorado Politics.

CLF is spending roughly $400,000 to air the ads through the primary on broadcast TV, cable, radio and digital platforms, sources familiar with the group’s spending said.

The CLF ad also accuses Hanks of “touting his radical anti-gun agenda” during a failed 2010 congressional run in California and says Hanks “even abandoned President Trump,” citing a social media post in which Hanks said Trump wasn’t his first choice in 2016.

Those characterizations drew a ferocious response from Hanks, one of the General Assembly’s most conservative members from 2021-2022, who declared himself a “pro-Trump warrior” when he launched his congressional run.

“Speaker Johnson’s CLF PAC shot itself in the face with their lies about my conservative record,” Hanks told Colorado Politics, adding that he has always been a strong Second Amendment advocate and has supported Trump every time Trump has run for president.

“It is sad Speaker Johnson’s PAC has taken to straight up lies — not mischaracterizations, LIES — to attempt to influence this race and install a RINO hack in this congressional seat,” Hanks said in a text message. “His effort will fail, because the grassroots have done the work to secure the district before his lies hit the airways.”

Colorado GOP Chairman Dave Williams blasted the House Republicans’ leadership PAC for its attack on Hanks, who won an endorsement last month from the state Republican Party.

“The Colorado GOP stands firmly with Ron Hanks, as he is the pro-Trump candidate and strongest gun advocate in the race,” Williams told Colorado Politics in a text message.

Williams, who is running in a primary in the 5th Congressional District for the seat held by retiring Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, added: “And it’s hypocritical that Speaker Johnson would engage in smear campaigns after speaking against such negative tactics.”

Johnson earlier this year endorsed Williams’ primary opponent, Jeff Crank, in the El Paso County-based 5th CD.

Meanwhile, Democrat Frisch released a 30-second ad on Tuesday tearing into Hurd, a Grand Junction attorney and first-time candidate, for “hiding” his positions on hot-button issues and refusing to say whether he voted for Trump or supports the former Republican president this year.

“Jeff Hurd is hiding,” the Frisch ad’s narrator says. “Ducking Republican debates, he won’t say where he is on abortion, the Second Amendment or building the wall. Hurd won’t even say who he voted for in 2016 in 2020 or who he supports for president. Now, all we really do know about Jeff Hurd is he’s financed by out of state corporate money. Lots of corporate money. Maybe that’s why he’s hiding.”

It’s Frisch’s first TV ad this cycle. After narrowly losing to Boebert in 2022, the Democrat set fundraising records last year and released internal polling that showed a neck-and-neck race with the incumbent. Boebert announced in late December that she was moving to run from a safer seat on the other side of the state, where she faces a six-way primary in the 4th Congressional District.

Frisch, who entered June with nearly $3.8 million in campaign cash in the bank — compared to Hurd’s $219,000 and just over $15,000 reported by Hanks — is spending just over $100,000 to air the ad across the district, according to ad trackers.

Hurd’s campaign said in a written statement that the district’s voters “won’t be duped by slick ads full of lies funded from out of state liberals.”

“A shock to no one, Adam and the Democrats are attacking Jeff because they know he is the only Republican who can beat Frisch and keep the seat red,” Hurd’s campaign said.

A spokeswoman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, the House GOP’s campaign arm, blasted Frisch for trying to influence the Republican primary.

“Adam Frisch’s gutter politics play reveals one thing: he can’t win unless he plays dirty,” the NRCC’s Delanie Bomar said in a written statement. “Republicans must stand united to denounce Democrats’ pathetic primary meddling — because Republicans should pick our party’s nominee, not Democrats.”

Frisch’s campaign manager said the Democrat is, instead, getting a jump on the fall election by taking aim at one of his likely Republican opponents.

“There are two Republican candidates who can win the Republican Primary,” Camilo Vilaseca told Colorado Politics in an emailed statement. “Ron Hanks is endorsed by the Republican Party and too extreme. Jeff Hurd is funded by corporate out-of-state interests, yet he continues to hide what he believes. I’m tired of watching Adam take shots from both of them. As far as I’m concerned, the general election has started.”