The new ad from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, embedded at bottom, comes two weeks after the party first went on the air in Pennsylvania, and just a couple days after Democratic nominee Joe Sestak started running his first ad. Toomey and his conservative allies have been hammering Sestak on the airwaves for months.

The latest 30-second spot seems to repeat the misleading claim that Toomey “pioneered derivatives” that “nearly wrecked our economy”—the same charge that fact-checkers took issue with in the DSCC’s last ad. In the 1980s, Toomey traded currency derivatives, but the so-called credit default swap derivatives that many blame for the 2008 financial crisis weren’t developed until Toomey left the industry. The DSCC is on slightly firmer ground this time in simply saying that Toomey “pioneered” derivatives and that derivatives “nearly wrecked” the economy—but the claim is still misleading.

“The evidence is clear,” the ad says. “Pat Toomey stands up for Wall Street, not you.”

The ad also continues the Democratic onslaught against Toomey’s position on Social Security. Toomey has long been one of the leading advocates for personal investment accounts as an alternative to Social Security—the plan pushed by former President George W. Bush that is widely referred to as privatization. Toomey has avoided the word privatization—language conservatives believe is unfairly loaded—but has maintained his support of the policy itself.

The ad says that Toomey’s plan would put “your Social Security at risk in the stock market”—a claim that is accurate in the broadest sense but still somewhat misleading. Most privatization plans call for only optional personal accounts, and even then, benefits would largely continue to come from the government-run Social Security program.

“Privatizing Social Security, helping Wall Street,” the ad says. “Pat Toomey: He’s not for you.”

The Rasmussen survey released Tuesday found Toomey garnering 45 percent of the vote, compared to 39 percent for Sestak. Eleven percent of voters are still undecided and five percent prefer another candidate, according to the poll.

Much of the public polling over the last few months has shown Toomey ahead by low double-digits or high single-digits, reflecting the rough political climate for Democrats nationally. But some polls have occasionally found the race to be a dead-heat, and the latest results came as Sestak is hoping to close whatever gap there is with a soft launch to his TV campaign.

Two polls earlier this month showed Toomey leading by nine points.

The latest survey of 750 likely voters, conducted Monday, had a margin of error of four percent.

The 30-second spot, coming just over two months before Election Day, strikes a stridently populist tone, juxtaposing Republican nominee Pat Toomey’s previous statements about corporate taxes with news clips about falling tax payments by corporations. The ad uses a 2007 CNBC appearance by Toomey, who at the time headed the conservative Club for Growth.

“I think the solution is to eliminate corporate taxes altogether,” Toomey said at the time.

The ad buy comes after Toomey and his conservative allies have been pummeling Sestak on the airwaves with negative spots for months. Democrats only began to insert themselves into the air wars a couple weeks ago, when the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee launched a spot hitting Toomey on his past as a derivatives trader.

After reviewing the facts, pa2010.com finds the ad to be accurate.

The ad buy is also somewhat unusual for Sestak’s TV consulting firm, The Campaign Group, which is more often known for saving all advertising money for the closing weeks of a race.

But the ad buy is relatively small, according to The Inquirer, which first reported the new spot. Reflecting Toomey’s considerable financial advantage and the fact that Sestak is still rebuilding a war chest depleted by his competitive primary against Arlen Specter, no TV time has been booked in the expensive Philadelphia media market. The campaign has so far reserved limited time in the Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Erie, Johnstown and Wilkes-Barre media markets.

Noting that Toomey was called “Wall Street’s Congressman” by the magazine Derivatives Strategy, the ad says “he’s for them, not for us.”

See the ad below.

The conservative Club for Growth, which Toomey led until shortly before he entered the Senate race, unveiled the 30-second spot Friday, which it says will air statewide on both cable and broadcast TV. The precise size of the ad buy was not immediately clear—an independent expenditure report had not yet been published online—but the group called the buy “substantial.”

The ad hits Sestak for supporting the $300 billion mortgage bailout that passed with bipartisan support in 2008 and was signed by President Bush; for supporting cap-and-trade energy legislation that passed the House but stalled in the Senate; and for saying President Obama’s economic stimulus package should have been bigger.

“That’s Joe Sestak’s record, very liberal,” the ad says. “We can’t afford Joe Sestak’s liberal schemes in the Senate.”

There is some dispute as to the impact cap-and-trade legislation could have on jobs, but the ad remains factually in-bounds by saying the measure “could” cost jobs. The mortgage bailout bill was intended to help homeowners stuck with subprime loans to refinance at lower rates.

The Club for Growth is at least the fifth outside group to air a TV ad against Sestak in recent months. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee was quick to strike back Friday, saying Toomey had received a “Wall Street bailout” from the group, which was founded by Wall Street investors.

“Wall Street derivatives pioneer Pat Toomey said he stopped working on Wall Street two decades ago, but that hasn’t stopped his Wall Street buddies from rushing to bailout him out today,” DSCC spokesperson Deirdre Murphy said. “Already on the defense in all corners of Pennsylvania for his deep ties to Wall Street and over his history of pushing for Social Security privatization, it’s fitting that Toomey would turn to those closest to him for a bailout.”

See the ad below.

A prominent Pennsylvania gun control group didn’t appreciate that.

CeaseFirePA hammered Toomey for the comment, which it called “disrespectful and disappointing for a candidate who seeks to represent Pennsylvania in the Senate.” The group also noted that 22 law enforcement officers have been killed in the state over the last decade, and that 46 municipalities have passed lost or stolen handgun reporting laws in the last year-and-a-half.

“Pat Toomey’s remark show he doesn’t get it—gun violence affects us all,” CeaseFirePA executive director Joe Grace said in a statement Thursday. “His remark is insensitive to victims of gun violence in Pennsylvania—and to family members, friends and colleagues of persons who’ve been shot and killed. Given the gun violence directed at our police officers in Pennsylvania, it also seems like Mr. Toomey isn’t paying attention to this important public safety issue. That’s not acceptable.”

Toomey’s campaign didn’t immediately comment Thursday evening.

The Franklin & Marshall College survey released Thursday showed Toomey garnering 40 percent of likely voters, compared to 31 percent for Sestak. About one quarter of voters are still undecided, making for a wide open race, according to the poll.

Toomey’s edge is smaller among all registered voters: only three points, 31 percent to 28 percent. But at the moment, only 37 percent of the Keystone State’s Democrats are projected to vote this November, according to the poll, compared with 45 percent of Republicans.

The survey is generally in line with other public polls, which have shown Toomey, a former congressman, holding high single-digit or low double-digit leads over Sestak, a current two-term congressman.

About a third of voters still don’t know enough about either candidate to form an opinion, and both share similar similar favorability numbers.

The survey of 577 Keystone State adults, including 485 registered voters, was conducted Aug. 16 to 23, and had a margin of error of 5.4 percent when polling likely voters.

Click here to see the full poll.

The latest 30-second spot comes from Crossroads GPS, a group spearheaded by Karl Rove among others. It hits Sestak for supporting President Obama’s so-called “big government health care scheme.”

The ad misleadingly claims that insurance premiums will rise by an average of $2,100 under the new health care law, but the government report cited says increases will come because more family members will have access to insurance under the law. The ad also misleadingly claims that 850,000 seniors in the Keystone State could “lose their Medicare plan,” lumping the privately administered Medicare Advantage plans that some seniors could eventually exit in favor of traditional Medicare.

The size of the latest ad buy remains unclear. Sestak had previously been targeted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and two conservative Israel policy groups.

See the ad below.

Hagel, the two-term senator from Nebraska who opted not to seek reelection in 2008, backed Sestak at events in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, calling Sestak, a former Navy Admiral, “exactly the kind of leader American needs right now in its history.”

“I have never met a public servant more committed to making a better world than Joe Sestak,” Hagel said at Washington Square here.

Hagel has bucked his party before, and was a soft-spoken supporter of Barack Obama’s after forgoing an endorsement of John McCain in the 2008 presidential race. Exactly a week after he was endorsed by Michael Bloomberg, the Republican-turned-Independent mayor of New York, Sestak continued to play up his bipartisan appeal.

“I think think there’s a very pragmatic way to approach [America's problems],” Sestak said. “I think there’s this ability to be independent, to work with dissent, the difference of ideas, and reach across the aisle to see if you cannot not work together.”

Both Hagel and Sestak are military veterans, and both have traveled together to Iraq and Kuwait as lawmakers. Sestak called Hagel “the man I most admire in Congress.”

Hagel passed on a chance Tuesday afternoon to talk about Sestak’s opponent, Republican Pat Toomey.

“I’m not here on behalf of Pat Toomey, I’m here on behalf of Joe Sestak,” Hagel said. “And I think Mr. Toomey is a  good man, decent man, honest man. But that said, I’m here to endorse Joe Sestak.”

Toomey’s campaign, for its part, stepped up its efforts to discount Sestak’s self-proclaimed independence, recalling the many, many times during the Democratic primary during which Sestak called himself the “real Democrat” and said he wanted to be President Obama’s strongest ally.

“Congressman Sestak can bring in all the out-of-state individuals he wants to try to put forward his extreme makeover, but all Pennsylvanians are left with is an extreme liberal,” Toomey spokeswoman Nachama Soloveichik said in a statement. “Congressman Sestak changes his tune day-to-day on the campaign trail, but the most telling thing is how he votes when he’s in Washington, and there is nothing independent about his record of voting down-the-line for the bailouts, the stimulus … the cap-and-trade energy tax, and $3.5 trillion in deficit spending. If Joe Sestak is looking for an out-of-state visitor who best reflects his voting record, he ought to invite Nancy Pelosi.”

Democrat Joe Sestak will look to continue building his independent cred Tuesday, when he gets an endorsement from former Senator Chuck Hagel. The Nebraska Republican is the type of moderate who has found there is increasingly little room for his kind in Washington, and chose not to seek reelection in 2008. He’ll formally back Sestak during events in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, just a week after the Democratic nominee was endorsed by New York’s independent Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Meanwhile, Democrats in Pennsylvania were reacting with glee over the weekend to an Associated Press story reporting that Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul got money from the operator of a pornographic Web site. The reason it matters here? Republican Senate nominee Pat Toomey also got $4,800 from the site’s owner. Naturally, Democratic operatives were e-mailing the story around like candy.

Toomey’s campaign hardly hurried to distance itself from the donor in question.

“We have over 50,000 individual donors,” Toomey campaign spokeswoman Nachama Soloveichik told The AP. “Many of those supporters do not agree with Pat on every issue, but they tend to share his belief that the government in Washington is too big, it taxes too much, and it is sticking future generations with far too much debt. We’re happy to have those supporters, even if we differ on some issues.”

And speaking of Toomey, his official “More Jobs, Less Government” bus tour kicked off Monday, as the former congressman rolled through counties in central and northeast Pennsylvania. “As I travel across Pennsylvania, I will share my plan for creating jobs through reducing the deficit, implementing job-creating tax cuts, and eliminating big-government obstacles to small business growth,” Toomey said in a statement. “I believe we can achieve a booming recovering if we institute the right kind of policies and stop the fiscally irresponsible path Washington is taking our country down right now.”

Democrats, for their part, have already started a counter-bus tour, seeking to ask Toomey questions through the press at every stop along the way. “While Pat Toomey has spent much of his Senate campaign running from his Wall Street past, Harrisburg families deserve to know the truth about who he really represents,” Dauphin County Commissioner George Hartwick said in one of a few statements from the party Monday. “He may be right for Wall Street, but he is wrong for Pennsylvania.”

The party also put out a Web video, embedded below.

Having already made its first ad buy in the race recently, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has purchases or reserved about $4.4 million worth of airtime in the race between Joe Sestak and Republican Pat Toomey, The Inquirer reports.

Until recently, almost all TV media buys in the race were made by Toomey and independent groups supporting him. The DSCC’s ad reservations include three weeks of airtime in October, when attention to the race should be at its height.

Correction: The original version of this article and its headline misleadingly described how much money the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee will spend. It has made ad buys and airtime reservations totaling about $4.4 million, but it has not committed itself to definitely spending that entire amount.