Former Congressman Ed Case was quick to criticize his opponent, Congresswoman Mazie Hirono, for accepting $99,000 from special-interest groups in the first head-to-head fundraising period in their race for the Democratic Party’s U.S. Senate nomination. 

The Hirono campaign’s finance chair, Jadine Nielsen, provided this response to DC808 on Thursday afternoon:

“It’s unfortunate Ed Case is already attacking Mazie Hirono, even as Mr. Case struggles to gather support for his own Senate campaign. Of course, Mr. Case knows he has accepted $300,000 PAC contributions of his own over the years, so his attack rings pretty hollow. It’s probably just frustrating for Mr. Case to see so many people joining our grassroots campaign because they agree with Mazie’s progressive agenda of protecting Medicare and Social Security, creating jobs, and strengthening Hawaii’s public schools.”

An earlier version of this post misspelled Jadine Nielsen’s name.