The country’s largest gun-rights group has officially joined the fight over control of the Senate.

On Tuesday, the National Rifle Association Political Victory Fund unveiled a $2 million television ad buy attacking incumbent Senator Jon Tester (D., Mont.). The new ad, which depicts a Montana mother gearing up to defend her rural home from an impending home invasion, criticizes Tester for voting in support of gun-control legislation and being insufficiently protective of the right of armed self-defense.

“Where I live, you can’t wait for 911. My family’s safety is in my hands alone,” a female voice says in the new ad. “But gun grabbers who’ve never been to Montana, let alone out here, want to take my rights away.”

“My gun is in my pocket,” the ad continues. “But my Senator is in theirs.”

The new ad is the NRA’s first major buy of the 2024 election cycle. It comes as the group, along with its peers in the gun-rights movement, has consistently been outraised and outspent by the country’s three largest gun-control groups in the lead-up to November. The new $2 million expenditure for a single race amounts to roughly ten times what the group has put into outside spending this cycle to date, according to the most recent Federal Election Commission filings.

The group’s ramp-up in political spending underscores the importance of the Montana race in determining the Senate’s balance of power. Tester, considered one of the most vulnerable Senate Democrats running for re-election this year, is locked in an uphill battle against former Navy SEAL and Montana businessman Tim Sheehy (R.). The RealClearPolitics polling average for the race has Sheehy running more than five points ahead of Tester. FiveThirtyEight’s polling tracker similarly shows a consistent advantage for Sheehy. With a GOP pickup of departing Senator Joe Manchin’s West Virginia seat a virtual guarantee, a Sheehy victory would almost certainly flip control of the Senate in Republicans’ favor.

The NRA said the new ad will run statewide on satellite and cable networks as well as on digital platforms.

“Jon Tester failed to protect my right to self-defense, and that’s why moms like me can’t wait to fire him in November,” the ad concludes.

Tester’s campaign responded to the ad by noting that Sheehy called the NRA a “mouthpiece for the gun industry” back in August 2023, according to Politico.

“As Tim Sheehy himself said, ‘I’m not the biggest fan of the NRA, because I don’t think the NRA is really, truly worried about Second Amendment rights,'” Monica Robinson, a Tester spokesperson, told The Reload in a statement. “There’s one champion who has always defended Montana gun owners, and that’s Jon Tester, who is a proud gun owner himself.”

A spokesperson for the Sheehy campaign told The Reload that the choice for Montana gun owners is clear this November.

“Tim Sheehy is A-rated by the NRA because he’ll always protect our Second Amendment rights and Jon Tester is F-rated by the NRA because he supports the Obama-Biden-Harris radical liberal gun control agenda,” the spokesperson said.

Gun-control advocates, meanwhile, have been relatively quiet in the state thus far. Neither Everytown for Gun Safety nor Giffords, the two most active gun-control groups in political spending, have spent on or contributed directly toward the Montana race. Neither has issued an endorsement of Tester’s re-election either.

They have announced major ad buys of their own lately. Everytown announced a $1 million digital ad buy in partnership with Planned Parenthood last month. The ads are targeted to the critical swing states Arizona, Michigan, and Pennsylvania and tie the issue of abortion and gun control, a strategy the group has relied on since 2022.

Everytown also pledged to spend $45 million on races in Arizona, California, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by November. Giffords has similarly pledged to spend $15 million on outreach to voters “in key states across the country.” So far, neither group has spent anywhere close to those sums through means the FEC can track, though.

In a social media rollout of the new ad, the NRA emphasized that it has given Tester an “F-rating.” It attacked his past votes on Supreme Court nominees and in support of the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the first law to expand the categories of people prohibited from owning firearms in nearly 30 years.

“Despite what he wants you to believe, Tester has repeatedly trampled Americans’ Constitutional right to keep and bear arms through his support for Kamala Harris and Chuck Schumer’s anti-gun agenda,” the group wrote. “Tester voted against Donald Trump’s pro-gun Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. However, he voted for Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s liberal, anti-gun Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.”

Sheehy has been endorsed by the NRA. The group gave him an AQ rating, which is the highest rating a first-time candidate can get. It is based on answers he provided to the NRA’s candidate questionnaire rather than an established voting record.

“I will fight back against any attempt by liberal politicians like Joe Biden and Jon Tester from pursuing a radical gun control agenda that threatens our Second Amendment rights,” the gun section on his website reads. “Our right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. As a Navy SEAL who fought for our country and to protect our freedoms, this is a fundamental constitutional right that must and will always be protected under my watch.”

Early voting in Montana is set to begin early next month.

UPDATE 9-11-2024 12:52 PM EASTERN: This piece has been updated with comment from the Tim Sheehy campaign.