Democrat Matt Cartwright has been representing Pennsylvania’s 17th Congressional District since 2013. That district includes the cities of Scranton and Wilkes-Barre. But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court blew up the district maps earlier this year because, in the court’s view, the last time the districts were redrawn the effort was partisan, and the intention was to benefit Republicans over Democrats—a violation of the state’s constitution. So the new Eighth Congressional District was created, which pairs Scranton and Wilkes-Barre with all of Lackawanna, Pike and Wayne counties and part of Luzerne County.

Pike and Wayne have been solidly Republican in recent elections, but the population centers of Scranton and Wilkes Barre have been Democratic, and according to the Roll Call website, the district has changed from “Leans Republican to Tilts Democratic.” Several analysts give the edge in the election to Cartwright, who is generally seen as a centrist.

Republican John Chrin, who was a managing director at JP Morgan Chase, is running against Cartwright. The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) has targeted Cartwright with ads criticizing him for being late with tax payments on a Washington DC condo and for supporting “sanctuary cities.”

Cartwright responded with an ad of his own, accusing Chrin of not telling the truth. Cartwright says to the camera, “My taxes are paid and John Chrin knew that when he started saying I was refusing to pay taxes… I voted for Kate’s Law to secure our boarders from criminals, and he knew that when he started running that outrageous ad.” That last part is a reference to a Chrin  ad that opens with a story about a five-year-old girl being raped by an undocumented immigrant, and accusing Cartwright of supporting sanctuary cities. The ad says Cartwright “voted to give illegals amnesty.”

Chrin says on his website, “America’s immigration system is broken. We need to secure our borders, not only as a critical matter of national security but also to prevent illegal immigrants and contraband like drugs from flowing into our country.”

Chrin’s campaign has also painted Cartwright as being in favor of raising taxes, but a press release from Mike Szustak, Cartwright’s campaign manager, denies that, and says that Cartwright voted “no” to the measure in question.

It then says that, in balancing their budget, House Republicans made cuts to Medicare totaling $486 billion over 10 years, and turning it into a voucher program. A Cartwright Facebook post says, “So John Chrin for U.S. Congress, question: If you are criticizing me for not voting to cut Medicare and turn it into a voucher program, are you in favor of those things? The voters would like to know.”

On his website, Chrin says, “I will protect and preserve the benefits of Social Security and Medicare promised to our seniors and all individuals who have paid into the system. We have an obligation to make the system solvent and make it stronger for future generations.”

Earlier ads from the Cartwright camp have painted Chrin as a Wall Street stockbroker who only purchased a home in the district last year so he would be eligible to run for Congress here. The ad shows Chrin looking at a chart showing that it would be much more expensive to “buy” a congressional race in New Jersey than in Pennsylvania, and suggests that’s why he made the decision to move here.

Many of the ads, emails and other communications from the two campaigns have been pretty standard election stuff, but the sanctuary cities accusation, which is also being made elsewhere by other congressional candidates, is slightly more offensive than the rest. That ad suggests that Cartwright cares more about preserving sanctuary cities than protecting a five-year-old girl from rape by an undocumented immigrant. And it pushes the false narrative that immigrants—here legally or not—commit more crimes that people born in the United States, when actually the reverse is true. Even a cursory review of the available literature on crime and immigration shows that immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than US-born citizens.

With the sanctuary cities ad, Chrin is using the same mix of immigration concerns, racism and fear that President Donald Trump used in his campaign for the presidency. So far, it doesn’t seem to be working out that well for Chrin.

The political website fivethirtyeight.com gives Cartwright an 88.3% chance of winning with a 54.7% share of the vote.