A national Republican group’s ads blasting U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, will stop in the last week of his contest against Bryan’s Bill Flores.

The National Republican Congressional Committee confirmed its plans with the Tribune-Herald , which first reported the development on the Waco Politics Report blog two weeks ago.

Committee spokeswoman Joanna Burgos downplayed canceling its ads for the last week at that time, noting “over 40 percent of voters vote before that week.”

Monday, however, an official at the GOP committee’s Democratic counterpart offered a different interpretation in a news release. Jesse Ferguson, a regional spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said “Flores has clearly been floundering for weeks, but now we know national Republicans have noticed.”

Ferguson said the GOP ad pullout is directly connected to Flores’ recent performance on the campaign trail.

Flores has been on the defensive for comments on the Social Security retirement age and an endorsement of private accounts for the program, Ferguson said.

Ferguson also said revelations a Flores company was allowed to avoid repaying $7.5 million to the federal government under a bankruptcy agreement had damaged Flores. Flores’ detractors have seized on the latter incident as evidence that Flores — a staunch critic of federal bailouts of the country’s financial institutions — took a bailout.

Flores campaign manager Matt Mackowiak downplayed the NRCC pullout, saying the campaign had been expecting the move for weeks and has planned accordingly. He said NRCC officials are comfortable with Flores’ chances, and as a result see a better bang for their buck in other races.

The NRCC has spent about $400,000, most of that going to TV ads, on the Congressional District 17 race, according to the Sunlight Foundation, which tracks outside spending.

The DCCC has spent almost $60,000, but The Dallas Morning News reported it will spend $550,000 in the pricey Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex media market down the stretch.

Other outside groups that aren’t required to disclose their donors, including Karl Rove’s American Crossroads and the Iowa-based American Future Fund, have put a combined $730,000 into ads attacking Edwards.