House Democrats' campaign arm moves to defend its embattled chief

Key Facts

CNN — The House Democrats’ campaign arm is swooping in to defend its chairman, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, who is facing a competitive reelection race in New York’s 17th Congressional District after Republicans spent millions to attack him.
With just two weeks left until the midterm elections, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said it would spend $605,000 to prop up Maloney, with a new ad slated to go up Tuesday hitting his Republican opponent Mike Lawler.
The House Democratic campaign arm decided to jump in after the Congressional Leadership Fund, which is aligned with House GOP leadership, and the National Republican Congressional Committee poured millions into the race.
Earlier this spring, as Republicans first began telegraphing their plans to target Maloney, the DCCC chairman – who has outraised his opponent and has successfully prevailed in competitive races in the past – told CNN he wasn’t worried about the GOP effort to defeat him and insisted that he doesn’t “see a scenario” where party resources would need to be spent on his own reelection race.