Kashkari airs new 60-second ad during World Series

GOP gubernatorial Neel Kashkari probably just saw his largest audience of the campaign Tuesday night, when he aired a 60-second ad during the sixth game of the World Series.

It’s unclear how broad the ad buy was during the game between the San Francisco Giants and the Kansas City Royals, but the candidate cut a roughly $162,000 check to air it in the San Francisco area, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the ad purchase.

The Giants had the opportunity to win the series tonight, so viewership was expected to be huge, potentially 40% or more of all households with a television in the market.

The ad was released as a Web video last week and hits a theme that Kashkari has been sounding in recent months -- Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown’s appeal of a judge’s recent ruling that some teacher tenure rules violate the equal-education rights of the California’s poor and minority children by disproportionately saddling them with inadequate instructors.

“In 2012, nine kids actually sued the state, demanding a fair chance at a good education and a better life. And in 2014, those kids won. The courts agreed that those kids civil rights were being violated by our failing schools,” Kashkari says in the ad, speaking into the camera in front of a Los Angeles-area high school.

“Then Jerry Brown had a choice – he could either stand up and fight on behalf of those kids, or he could fight on behalf of the unions that have funded his political career,” he continues. “Shockingly, Jerry Brown turned his back on and betrayed the neediest kids in California and he’s fighting those kids in court today.”

Kashkari is referring to Brown’s decision to appeal the ruling, which is also being appealed by the powerful state teachers unions.

For months, Kashkari has been trying to use the court decision to move the needle in a race that he is badly losing. Brown responded during their sole debate in September that he was required to appeal the decision because the state Constitution requires that the Court of Appeals invalidate a California law.

The ad is a tricky move for Kashkari in the Bay Area, Brown’s liberal backyard. The incumbent governor was born in San Francisco, served as mayor of Oakland for eight years and owns a home there.

Asked about the ad at a campaign stop in Torrance on Tuesday, Brown was unconcerned and referred to his own ads pushing two propositions on the November ballot that would authorize a $7.5-billion water bond and a state rainy day fund.

“We’ll have our ad, and I believe more people are going to watch it and more people are going to remember it because it’s very concise and very clear,” he said, before pointing to remarks he made earlier about major changes in education policy that have occurred on his watch during the past four years, notably temporarily increasing taxes to fund schools and changing school funding formulas so decision-making is more local and schools dealing with needier populations – English-language learners, the poor, foster kids – get additional dollars.

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seema.mehta@latimes.com