Republican U.S. Senate candidate Joni Ernst, at a recent chamber of commerce meeting in Iowa, responded to a question about negative attack ads against her opponent Bruce Braley, saying that she has no connection to the third-party groups producing some of the ads.

“When I’m talking through ads I’m going to stay positive,” Ernst said, adding that her campaign was committed to running positive ads. “I can’t control the outside groups with independent expenditures. I don’t have contact with them.”

But, as the grassroots web news series The Undercurrent has pointed out, Ernst, who serves as an Iowa state senator, attended and spoke at a Koch brothers retreat in June, telling conservatives there that the Kochs’ politically connected network launched her political career.

“The exposure to this group and to this network and the opportunity to meet so many of you—that really started my trajectory,” she said. “And it started a very strong victory that we’ve progressively built upon throughout the campaign cycle.”

Recent federal numbers show that the right-wing billionaire Koch brothers have donated the maximum amount to Ernst’s campaign. The Koch-funded group Americans for Prosperity has spent $500,000 in ads bashing her Democratic opponent, Braley.

Ernst’s platform is certainly in line with the ultra-conservative policies advocated by the Kochs. Ernst, who is also a lieutenant colonel in the Iowa Army National Guard, has called Obama a dictator and has voiced support for a federal “personhood” amendment and for the privatization of Social Security.

She has also said she would like to see an end to the federal minimum wage, would use firearms against the government, and would support eliminating the U.S. Department of Education.