GOP House ads making the most of Pelosi
She is still Public Enemy No. 1 as face of Dems
WASHINGTON – Nancy Pelosi has long been a favorite target of GOP attack ads. But Republicans seem to be taking it to another level in this election cycle.
The House Democratic leader has been featured in roughly one-third
(34%) of all GOP broadcast ads aired in U.S. House races this year, according to data provided to the USA TODAY NETWORK by Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political advertising.
That compares with 9% in all of
2016 and 13% in 2014. “Obama’s departure and the lack of a Clinton presidency has left Pelosi as the de facto stand-in as head of the Democratic Party” and shorthand to Republican voters for “liberal big government,” said Erika Franklin Fowler, a Wesleyan University political scientist who co-directs the Wesleyan Media Project, which analyzes broadcast
advertising in federal elections.
The key example of the strategy so far was the hard-fought special election for Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District, where 58% of GOP spots mentioned the San Francisco Democrat, according to the Kantar Media group.
In last year’s special election in Georgia’s 6th District, the most expensive U.S. House race ever, 55% of Republican spots featured Pelosi.
The 2018 ad wars are still in their infancy, but “you’re going to see a lot of her,” said GOP pollster Gene Ulm of Public Opinion Strategies. He called Pelosi “the gift that keeps on giving.”
“We’re going to spend millions and millions of dollars reminding voters across the country why Nancy Pelosi is bad for the country,” said Corry Bliss, director of the Congressional Leadership Fund, a GOP super-PAC and major spender in House races. “Nancy Pelosi is the most toxic, unpopular politician in American politics, period, end of discussion.”
Democratic strategists point out that the approach failed to produce a victory March 13 in Pennsylvania’s GOP-leaning 18th District, where Democratic winner Conor Lamb distanced himself from Pelosi, saying he would not back her for leadership if he won.
The Republicans “chose to go this route mainly out of a lack of anything else to talk about,” Pelosi spokesman Drew Hamill said. “When you’re the party in charge and your president is in the White House, the midterms will be about the president and his party. There is no way around that.”
“Pelosi is going to be front and center (for Republicans) until she doesn’t work anymore. … They’re going to try to roll Nancy out for one more cycle.” Evan Tracey Republican media consultant
Democratic pollster Mark Mellman said trying to tie Democratic candidates to Pelosi “doesn’t really add anything to the power of the attack — it’s like saying, ‘You’re a Democrat!’ I think it’s a relative waste of their time, effort and energy.”
The pollster did concede that the strategy is “sowing some discord on the Democratic side” as some Democrats running in more conservative districts break with Pelosi.
Pelosi’s negatives in national polls make her a handy target for the GOP: In a March poll by NBC and The Wall Street Journal, 21% of Americans viewed her positively and 43% negatively. (Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan’s ratings were not quite as bad: 24% viewed him positively and
37% negatively).
The last time Pelosi was so central to the Republican message was when she was House speaker in 2010 and Republicans won a wave election. But a big question now is whether attacking her loses some of its sting with Democrats completely out of power.
“Pelosi is going to be front and center (for Republicans) until she doesn’t work anymore. … They’re going to try to roll Nancy out for one more cycle and see if that is enough to scare enough (GOP) voters to come out in the midterms,” said Evan Tracey, a Republican media consultant, former head of the Kantar Media analysis group and adjunct professor at George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management.
“We did this with Ted Kennedy for years. It really works with the base, but it’s a wild card to see if younger voters, newer voters or some of these swing middle voters have that same reaction,” Tracey said.
Mobilizing the base is clearly one key goal for Republicans at a time when Democrats are galvanized in their animus toward the Trump presidency. The fear of another Pelosi speakership is motivating to Republican voters for at least one very specific reason, said Ulm, the GOP pollster.
“There is not a Republican in the country that doesn’t realize a return of Nancy Pelosi also means a return to the investigations and potential impeachment of the president,” Ulm said.
Pelosi has been a much more popular advertising target than other congressional leaders in recent years. Ryan has been targeted in only 5% of Democratic ads in House races this year and was targeted in fewer than
2% in 2016, according to the Kantar group. Democrats have a far more polarizing figure than Ryan they can use in their own advertising: Trump.