As recent polls show Jerry Moran with leads over Todd Tiahrt in the U.S. Senate primary, Tiahrt’s campaign Tuesday released an ad on tax increases.

“Jerry Moran is trying to deceive the voters of Kansas into believing he is a fiscal conservative, but his record of supporting tax increases throughout his career proves that to be indisputably false,” said Michelle Schroeder, a Tiahrt campaign spokeswoman.

But Moran’s campaign called it a “desperate, Washington-style, negative attack” in reaction to a Survey USA poll published Monday that showed Moran leading Tiahrt 52 percent to 29 percent among 522 likely Republican voters for the Aug. 3 primary.

The Tiahrt ad highlights five tax votes from 1991 to 1993 when Moran served in the state Senate. It also referenced Moran being one of 12 House Republicans to vote against a 2003 budget resolution related to President George W. Bush’s original $726 billion tax cut plan. Moran later supported the $350 billion Bush tax cut plan.

In response to the ad, Moran’s campaign said he was a “true fiscal conservative, having voted for lower taxes over 200 times in Congress.”

“It’s ironic that a central figure of Washington’s spending committee is trying to lecture Jerry Moran on fiscal conservatism,” said Dan Conston, a Moran campaign spokesman. “Tiahrt has a long and controversial history of embracing Washington’s spending problem.”

Both men have served several terms in the U.S. House, with Moran representing most of western and central Kansas and Tiahrt serving south-central Kansas, including the Wichita area.