What These Political Ads Are Really Telling You
GOP doesn't have money to challenge across the map
It’s 28 days to the election. Football is in full swing. Playoff baseball is out of the bullpen.
That means massive captive television audiences filled with low propensity voters. Here are two ads from either campaign that I saw repeatedly this weekend.
Saved My Life
This is bread and butter Democratic messaging. You could run a version of this ad anytime in the last 30 years at least.
Democrats create government programs that affect real change. Republicans break them and endanger the populace.
A Wisconsin farmer has a brain tumor. Obamacare helped save her life and her farm.
But there is are two other themes embedded in here.
“Trump is coming for our healthcare, that’s pretty damn scary.”
The Harris campaign has made no secret that they want to remind voters that Trump was not only chaotic when he was in office but that he will be worse if he returns.
“Kamala Harris cares about us.”
This has been the hobby horse of the Obama alums since Biden was still in the race: Diminish the populist appeal of Trump by painting him as self-absorbed.
All in all this is an effective testimonial ad. Probably more effective with Democratic leaners, you do have to have warm feelings about Obamacare after all. But who can root against a farmer with a brain tumor?
Unbelievable
This ad ran a lot during football. It tells the story of Kamala Harris using her power as California Attorney General to allow taxpayer funded sex changes for prison inmates.
Rule of thumb with political ads: male narrators are used for declarative facts and female narrators are used to ask question or discover new information.
It is notable that we have a female narrator here because the point of the ad isn’t to declare Kamala is a radical leftwing nut job, it’s to discover it.
“It sounds insane, because it is insane.”
Note a few things, there is not a claim on screen that isn’t accompanied by mainstream media credential. Don’t trust Trump on this, trust the New York Times and Associated Press that it’s true.
The risk is to go put this much money behind an ad about transgender surgery. Does anyone persuadable really care?
The argument is that the ad isn’t really about transgender surgery, that’s just a hood ornament for the larger vehicle: Kamala Harris is a frivolous, unserious liberal. She will do anything the left wants, even something as bizarre as bragging about taxpayer funded transgender prison surgeries.
The Breakfast Club radio host (and Kamala backer) Charlemagne The God said this was an effective message juxtaposed with football.
Trump ‘24 is most scared that Kamala can run away from her 2019 Democratic Primary campaign where she embraced a laundry list of left wing positions. Every time you hear Harris talk about owning a gun or prosecuting transnational gangs, that is her attempt to do just that.
Do not be surprised to see more ads featuring Harris saying liberal things in her own words.
Republican Senate Spending Strategy Raises Questions
Speaking of ads, the GOP Senate map is very favorable but the party might not have the money to play in all the states they could win.
According to Politico
Republicans and their allies are spending more money in a single state, Pennsylvania, than in Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona combined.
In fact, the GOP is spending 2.3 times as much to help former hedge fund CEO Dave McCormick oust a strong Democratic incumbent in Pennsylvania as in Michigan, a similarly purple state that has an open seat.
More money is going into defending Sen. Ted Cruz’s Texas seat, which is considered in play but not highly at risk, than in three Senate races in presidential battlegrounds.
In Arizona, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) alone is spending more than all the Republican advertisers, including outside groups, combined.
GOP super PACs and mega-donors are putting more money into former Gov. Larry Hogan’s uphill Senate bid in blue-leaning Maryland than in the Sun Belt targets.
My biggest surprise is Sam Brown in Nevada. He is up against Democratic incumbent Jacky Rosen and appears to have been totally abandoned by the party.
Frank
I just finished listening to Claire Meynial's breakdown of the situation with the Muslim vote in Michigan and I'm wondering if there is any indication this is typical of Muslim's throughout the country. While they only make up 1.3% of the total population in such a close election that could be a game changer.
Discussions about muslim voters remind me a lot of discussions about latino voters. A devout Yemeni man in Michigan is going to vote differently than a Pakistani New Yorker.
Do issues like the war in the Middle East vote them? Maybe. But you can often get over your skis thinking there a skeleton key issue for larger demo.