Exclusive: The economy's booming, but you wouldn't know that from most GOP midterm ads

WASHINGTON – House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., says his party has a great economy and a “phenomenal record” to run on.

But that’s not the campaign most Republicans are waging as they scramble to defend their congressional majorities in the home stretch of the 2018 election.

In recent weeks, fewer than one in five Republican ads have mentioned jobs or the economy, according to data provided to the USA TODAY Network by Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group (CMAG), which tracks political ads.

Even as GOP leaders embrace every piece of good economic news, there is little sign that Republicans see it as an issue they can rely on to protect endangered seats.  Control of both the House and Senate is at stake Nov. 6.

“They argue it’s ‘morning in America,’ but in their ads, it’s not morning in America,” said Ken Goldstein, a University of San Francisco political scientist who studies campaign advertising.

Instead, the Republicans and their allies are devoting most of their television money to pummeling Democratic opponents on a host of personal and political issues. 

“They’re not promoting their policies as a way to preserve their majorities. They’re reminding voters of what could come down the line if the Democrats take over,” said Michael Franz, a Bowdoin professor with the Wesleyan Media Project, which tracks how TV ads are used in election campaigns.

Analysts and strategists in both parties point to several reasons why the economy isn’t paying greater dividends for the GOP, even though economic satisfaction nationally is on the rise.

Among them: President Donald Trump’s unpopularity; how his Twitter feed and the turmoil around his presidency have overshadowed the story of the economy; the fact that the benefits of economic growth aren’t universally felt; and the notion that “good times” can make economic issues less important to some voters.  

Democrats are also doing their share of attacking in this election cycle. They have waged an assault on the GOP over health care, an issue that pops up in one out every two Democratic ads, making it easily the No. 1 topic in the 2018 ad wars.  A favorite Democratic line of attack: saying Republicans will eviscerate coverage for people with pre-existing conditions.   

But the ad data show that Republicans are devoting more of their advertising than Democrats are to attacks on their opponents – and more than they did in the previous midterm elections in 2014.  Republican ads tell voters that Democrats want to open the borders, take away the tax cuts and bankrupt Medicare.  The ads have gotten personal, too.

In Ryan’s own southern Wisconsin district, a GOP group affiliated with the speaker has launched a massive TV blitz attacking Democrat Randy Bryce for having nine arrests on his record.  Another ad features Bryce’s own brother bashing his sibling. (Ryan is not running for re-election).

In Senate races this year, 84 percent of the GOP’s general election ads include attacks on the opposing candidate, compared to 57 percent of Democratic ads, according to the CMAG data. 

In House races, 60 percent of GOP ads include attacks, compared to 45 percent of Democratic ads.

“It really speaks to what kind of trouble they’re in,” said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. “If you’re the party in power, you should be running on what you did. What we’re seeing instead is they’re trying to define the Democrats negatively.”

That is hardly a novel strategy, of course. GOP strategists believe Democrats have veered left and given an opening to Republicans struggling through a perilous political environment under a president with persistently negative ratings.  

In House races, many GOP incumbents face challengers who are political newcomers. Driving up an opponent’s “negatives” is a long-standing tactic of incumbents against lesser-known opponents, especially when their party faces political headwinds.   

Republican groups as ‘hammer’

“I think Republicans have a good story to tell on the economy,” said Courtney Alexander, spokeswoman for the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Ryan. But she said it’s the mission of groups like hers to be “the hammer” for the party and not let Democrats go “undefined.”

“They have a lot of undefined candidates,” said Alexander, whose group is airing the ads in Ryan’s district about Democrat Randy Bryce’s arrest record. “We’re seeing Democrats’ negatives continuing to increase as voters find out where they really stand on issues and how out of touch they are with the districts they’re in.”

Democrats need to pick up at least 23 seats to gain control of the House.

Ryan said last week that his party has a “fantastic contrast to run on,” because Democrats “want to repeal all the economic policies that have made this economy great.”  

If the election is about the economy, he said, “I think we’re going to be just fine.”

But that hasn’t been the focal point of his party’s campaign, at least on television, where the lion’s share of the money is spent.

In a two-week stretch from Aug. 29 to Sept 12, only 6 percent of GOP ads mentioned the economy; only 19 percent mentioned either jobs or the economy. The rest were devoted to a mix of issues from taxes to immigration to spending to health care.

“They’ve clearly decided that even though national economic factors may be at their back, the national political factors are not,” Goldstein said, referring to party’s midterm headaches under Trump.  

Ryan suggested last week the “haze and noise” of the news environment has made it difficult to sell his party’s economic message.

Lake, the Democratic pollster, said many voters in Trump’s blue-collar base “are less likely to think the economy is doing better,” and for others who feel the improvement, it’s no longer a front-burner issue.

“The economy doesn’t do anything (as an issue) to energize their base,” said Lake, who said the GOP tax cuts haven’t provided the political boost either that Republicans were hoping for.

Taxes are the top issue in GOP ads, mentioned in more than a third of recent Republican spots.

But Republicans have framed their tax message more in negative terms (saying Democrats will raise taxes) than positive terms (extolling the virtues of the tax cut). In the period from Aug. 29 to Sept. 12, more than two-thirds of the GOP ads on taxes were used to attack the Democratic candidate rather than promote the Republican candidate, according to the ad data.

Overall, the mix of negative and positive ads is not any different in the 2018 campaign than it was in the 2014 midterms, the data show.

What has changed is that Republicans are airing comparatively fewer positive ads than four years ago, and Democrats are airing comparatively more.

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