Cox’s 1st ad uses familiar messages
Republican gubernatorial candidate John Cox struck a Trump-like outsider tone in his first general election ad Monday — saying politicians and special interests have “rigged the game” — and borrowed a former Democratic presidential candidate’s campaign slogan to suggest he’s the one to bring about change.
The underlying message of Cox’s ad: Democrats who “have been leading California for so long have not been leading it well,” as the state has a high poverty rate, a rising homeless population, pricey rents, crumbling
roads and burdensome taxes.
The two-minute ad, which will be distributed only through digital platforms, says “entitled politicians and the special interests” have “rigged the game, trading favors and enriching themselves, while forgotten Californians have been left behind.”
Cox’s Democratic opponent in the November election, Lt. Gov. Gavin
Newsom, “stands with the lobbyists and the corrupt insiders,” the ad says.
President Trump regularly inveighed against a “rigged” system in his presidential run and promised to stand up for “the forgotten men and women” in both his GOP nomination acceptance speech and his inaugural address.
Cox describes a state in which “people have to choose between buying gas to get to work, or groceries to feed their family.”
Cox, a San Diego-area businessman who ran for office unsuccessfully several times in his native Illinois, paints himself as an outsider “who wasn’t supposed to make it into this race for governor.”
He adds, “The good news is — help is on the way.”
“Help is on the way,” the name of Cox’s ad, was 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry’s campaign slogan, and he used it as a refrain during his nomination acceptance speech.
Asked about the similar messaging, Cox communications director Matt Shupe said, “Californians forgotten by the Sacramento political class have no problem telling John Cox every day what they need help with. The people are driving the message that they need help.”
— Joe Garofoli Flipping states: Democrats lost more than 1,000 state legislative seats nationally over the past decade, but Jessica Post sees that trend turning around in November.
Democrats have already flipped 44 Republican-held seats since President Trump took office, Post, executive director of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, said on The Chronicle’s “It’s All Political” podcast. Republicans have returned the favor by flipping six Democraticheld seats.
While Republicans hold the majority in nearly two-thirds of state legislatures, Democrats are a total of 17 seats away from flipping eight state senate chambers, Post said. Now, Democrats hold 26 chambers nationally.
While the plight of state-level Democrats has long been dire, “it is in some ways better than folks might expect,” said Post, whose organization is focused on electing Democrats to state legislatures.
Post said her committee’s budget has roughly doubled to $35 million over the past two years as more Democrats grow concerned about Republicans passing tighter state restrictions on issues like abortion rights and gun control.
Most Democratic candidates for state legislative seats who have prevailed in this cycle have used the same strategy, Post said: They talked about local issues, not Trump.
She pointed to Democrat Linda Belcher, who won a special election in a Kentucky legislative district that Trump won by 50 points in 2016. Belcher talked about the poor condition of the district’s roads, not national issues.
“If you’re driving to work on an unsafe road,” Post said, “you’re not thinking about Trump’s tweets.”
The good news for Republicans in the face of this mini-trend is perhaps a more powerful longterm trend: Ninety-two percent of incumbents typically win re-election to state legislative seats.
— Joe Garofoli