With Election Day less than a month away, the biggest players on both sides of the gun debate have started ramping up their ad spending significantly. Where they’re choosing to spend, and the messages they’re relying on are telling.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) and Everytown for Gun Safety announced new multi-million dollar ad buys in the last week. While the buys were in different races, they shared a common theme of mixing gun policy messaging with other issues–most notably crime and abortion.

On Tuesday, the NRA’s Political Victory Fund (PVF) unveiled a “seven-figure ad buy” in Ohio targeting incumbent Senator Sherrod Brown (D.) and boosting challenger Bernie Moreno (R.). The group did not disclose precisely how much it would spend on the ad campaign, only that it would air on cable networks statewide until the election. Recent Federal Election Commission independent expenditure disclosures show the group has spent $575,551.38 in support of Bernie Moreno and $510,150.62 against Sherrod Brown so far this cycle.

The group’s new 30-second ad features three women seated at a gun range and leads with messaging on crime.

“Crime isn’t just happening on TV,” the ad begins. “When seconds count, the police are minutes away. Because soft-on-crime politicians like Sherrod Brown turn their back on law enforcement and refuse to protect our rights to self-defense, even putting anti-gun judges on the bench.”

“Senator Brown has failed us,” the ad continues. “NRA-endorsed Bernie Moreno will defend our rights. Vote like your life depends on it because it might.”

The Ohio ad buy is the NRA’s second major investment in the 2024 cycle after the group launched its $2 million ad-blitz against vulnerable incumbent Senator Jon Tester (D.) in Montana last month. The pattern suggests the group is focusing its leaner-than-usual election coffers this cycle on the Senate, specifically for vulnerable Democrats that could plausibly tip control of the chamber toward more gun-friendly Republicans in November.

By contrast, Everytown’s announcements this week centered partnerships with outside PACs on ad spending for the Presidential race and competitive House races in deep-blue states. On Thursday, Everytown’s super PAC launched a $5 million digital ad campaign in partnership with Future Forward, the single-largest Democratic-leaning super PAC in the country funded primarily by tech entrepreneurs and Michael Bloomberg.

The newly formed partnership released two ads set to run in Michigan and Pennsylvania, each boosting Kamala Harris and opposing Donald Trump. In at least one of the ads, the groups emphasize Harris’ credentials as a tough-on-crime supporter of law enforcement, with gun policy playing second fiddle.

“‘Back the blue.’ For Kamala Harris, it’s more than a slogan,” the ad begins. “She’s prosecuted rapists and murderers, brought gangs to justice, hired thousands more police officers, and expanded background checks to keep guns away from violent criminals.”

“But Donald Trump says he’d repeal those background checks and cut hundreds of millions from the COPS program,” the ad continues. “So ask yourself: Who backs the blue? The convicted felon out for himself, or the prosecutor who put more cops on our streets?”

The second ad released by the partnership presents a more conventional gun-control message.

“Leaders show themselves at our darkest hours,” the narrator in the second ad says. “When kids are being gunned down in their classrooms, Donald Trump says, ‘Get over it.’ While his VP pick calls school shootings ‘a fact of life.’ Enough is enough. Kamala Harris has a real plan to pass meaningful gun safety laws and keep kids safe.”

On Friday, Everytown’s super PAC unveiled a similar $10 million advertising partnership with House Majority PAC, the political arm of House Democratic leadership. They announced a campaign of ads on digital and streaming platforms in New York and California battleground districts. Thus far, the effort has only released two ads, each targeting New York Representative Brandon Williams (R.).

Both ads focus heavily on an issue even more removed from gun policy than crime: abortion.

“Abortion banned without any exceptions. Guns in the hands of violent criminals,” one ad begins. “It could happen in New York if Brandon Williams is re-elected to Congress. Because Williams is pushing an extreme agenda to let MAGA politicians ban abortion, even in cases of rape or incest. And he’d roll back gun safety laws like background checks, making it easier for violent criminals to get guns, no questions asked.”

In fact, the second ad doesn’t mention guns at all.

“When Roe v. Wade got overturned, Brandon Williams called it ‘a monumental victory,'” the ad opens. “Because Williams spent years trying to rip away abortion rights: voting to restrict abortion medication, punish doctors and nurses, and ban private health insurance plans from covering abortion.”

“And in Congress, Williams could help MAGA Republicans pass a national abortion ban, even in cases of rape,” it continues. “Even in New York State. Brandon Williams: He’s dangerously wrong on abortion.”

Where groups on either side of the gun debate are choosing to make their biggest investments in the home stretch of the 2024 cycle is indicative of where they’re feeling confident. For the NRA, that’s the Senate. The Senate map strongly favors Republicans this cycle, and election analysts give the GOP strong odds of regaining control of the chamber.

By contrast, this new flood of gun-control spending on the House and the Presidency may reflect the fact that Democrats are narrowly favored to win back the House, while Kamala Harris maintains a slim polling lead over Donald Trump. In other words, both sides appear to be using their war chests to press their current advantages rather than attempting to shore up races with longer odds.

At the same time, while the NRA has not yet invested in television advertisements to boost its preferred presidential candidate the way Everytown has, the group has still invested in the former president in other ways. The NRA PVF has spent $1,917,709.82 in independent expenditures supporting Trump this cycle, according to FEC filings. That’s far less than the group famously spent in 2016 to help get Donald Trump elected, but that could have more to do with the group’s beleaguered state than its confidence in his electoral odds. Tellingly, the group also announced on Friday that the former president would be headlining its upcoming “Defend the 2nd“ event in battleground Georgia later this month–the third time Trump will speak at an NRA event this year.

Gun groups highlighting other politically salient issues in their ads isn’t a new tactic, it’s been used to mixed results before, but the popularity of it this cycle may be indicative of how gun politics have taken a back seat in 2024. Voters have downplayed guns on their list of priorities throughout this election season, and neither candidate has sought to make it a marquee issue–Trump has even actively deprioritized it.

It will be worth watching if these strategies persist for both groups in the final days leading up to Election Day, where the outcome will prove which efforts paid dividends.