WASHINGTON -- With the brutal GOP Senate primary in Georgia finally over, the sparring parties are mending fences and hoping to move on. Toward that end, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has taken down a stinging ad that compared businessman David Perdue, who beat out the Chamber's preferred candidate, to a crying baby.
At times, it seemed like Perdue was running against the Chamber just as much as he was running against Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.). The Chamber endorsed Kingston and contributed millions of dollars, while Perdue positioned himself as a "conservative outsider" who wouldn't be beholden to such Washington interests.
On Monday evening, right before voters headed to the polls in Tuesday's GOP runoff, the Chamber released an online ad responding to Perdue's criticism.
"Why is David Perdue attacking us?" the narrator asked in the 30-second spot. "Well, he sought our endorsement several times but didn't get it. Now, losing and desperate, David is crying like a little baby."
The ad received quite a bit of attention, but as of Thursday, it's no longer viewable. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Jim Galloway tweeted Thursday morning, "U.S. Chamber destroys evidence of its David Perdue attack."
Rob Engstrom, the Chamber's national political director, cautioned against reading too much into the ad's removal.
"[W]e took it down bc the runoff is over. Nothing more than that," he wrote in an email to The Huffington Post.
The Chamber's ad supporting Kingston remains online.
It remains to be seen whether the Chamber will get involved in the general election, where Perdue will face off against Democrat Michelle Nunn. Engstrom did not reply to a question about the organization's future endorsement plans. Perdue's spokesman did not return a request for comment.
In a Facebook post after his loss, Kingston said he plans to support Perdue in the general election.
"I called David Perdue to congratulate him and offer my support for his campaign in the General Election," he said. "We need to unite to defeat Nunn in November."
HuffPost Pollster, which averages publicly available polling, currently shows a tight race between Nunn and Perdue, though Nunn has a slight edge.
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