Tom Cotton in The Wall Street Journal

On Families & Children: Domestic violence victim funding pushes ideological agenda

Domestic violence has gotten a spate of national attention with the release of video showing former NFL player Ray Rice beating the woman who is now his wife. The issue had been before Congress in 2013 when the federal Violence Against Women Act came up for renewal. Before the House passed a 5-year extension of the law, it rejected a GOP alternative. Cotton voted against both versions.

His campaign website explains that he believes the federal program spends too much money to "fund liberal organizations to carry out an ideological agenda without effective results in reducing violence against women." A Cotton spokesman said the ad was a part of Democrats' effort to claim Cotton was waging a "war on women," and to distract from "Obama-Pryor economic policies."