‘AMERICA. NO COMMIES!’: One t-shirt explains the GOP’s midterm attack plan

Por Andrew Howard and Aaron Pellish — POLITICO – TOP Stories

DALLAS — Republicans made their midterm convention all about red meat for their base. Their message on affordability, the issue voters are hungriest to hear about, was just a side dish.

On stage at the Republican National Committee’s midterm convention, in private meetings just offsite in hotels around Dallas, and in TV ads airing in between live coverage of the unusual spectacle, the party’s main focus was painting Democrats as too extreme.

But poll after poll shows that the cost of living is voters’ top concern by a wide margin. And while Republican leaders touted the Trump administration’s tax cuts and other economic policies in their speeches, few spent much time making an affirmative case for alleviating those concerns.

Instead, Republicans have sought to tie Democratic candidates in competitive races to the progressive figures leading the farthest edge of the party’s left flank, while framing their candidates as defenders against a “radical” party.

“If they win, the greatest legislative body in history will, for the first time ever, be controlled by a communist caucus,” President Donald Trump told the crowd Wednesday, his first of two headline speeches.

“This is about common sense versus crazy,” North Carolina GOP Senate nominee Michael Whatley said in an interview, using the same phrase as numerous other Republican leaders, including National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Richard Hudson (R-N.C.),Speaker Mike Johnson and Vice President JD Vance.

“These people are sick,” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) said of Democrats from the podium.

“This midterm, we face the most dangerous, radical and frankly weird Democrat candidates in American history,” said Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

All received raucous praise from attendees at the American Airlines Center, which was littered with MAGA hats and anti-communism merch. One attendee sported a shirt that read “AMERICA. NO COMMIES!”

Republicans know they desperately need to turn out the low-propensity base voters that returned Trump to office in 2024 to avoid a Democratic deluge this fall. The president’s direct plea asking voters to treat the midterms as if he’s on the ballot during his Wednesday speech typifies the approach, said a GOP strategist backing Republican congressional candidates, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly.

“That is him trying to turn out low-propensity Trump voters,” the person said. “To me, that’s what this convention is for.”

Battleground Republicans have been emphasizing the affordability a bit more in TV ads in their districts — but even then, that effort pales in comparison to the number of attack ads they’re lobbing against Democrats. Since Aug. 1, Republican candidates, committees and aligned PACs have spent $267.8 million on TV ads in competitive House and Senate races, per ad tracking firm AdImpact. Of those, $130 million were characterized by AdImpact as being tonally negative, while $91.2 million mentioned taxes or taxation — the most common theme of Republicans’ economic messaging in ads as well as onstage in Dallas.

As both sides continue to move resources into redder territory, turning out the GOP base with dire warnings about Democrats becomes more important. In those states, the GOP may be able to stanch the bleeding simply by mobilizing their own voters in droves rather than persuading disaffected independents.

At a private luncheon featuring GOP Senate leaders, battleground senators and candidates hosted by the Senate Leadership Fund on Wednesday, the conversation included tight races in Iowa and Texas, both of which Trump won by double digits in 2024. On Thursday, the Trump-aligned super PAC MAGA Inc. announced that Vice President JD Vance would head to Kansas, where GOP Sen. Roger Marshall is facing a surprisingly competitive reelection bid.

One convention attendee from the state was overheard by a POLITICO reporter bemoaning Marshall’s situation — in a state where the GOP hasn’t lost a Senate race in more than 90 years — on the hotel shuttle after Trump’s speech Wednesday.

Several top Republicans have tried to deflect by blaming Democrats in those closed-door meetings.

In a Thursday donor meeting hosted by SLF, Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) sought to ease donors’ concerns about the escalating tariffs with Canada and the war in Iran hurting Republicans in battleground states, including in normally red Alaska, by leaning into the fears of Democrats gaining control of Congress, according to two people in the room, who were granted anonymity to discuss the private meeting. And at a private meeting in Dallas with delegates from battleground states on Thursday, Vance urged Republicans to lean into the contrast with Democrats.

“We’ve got to nationalize this election, we’ve got to talk about all the crazy things Democrats are doing,” Vance said, according to audio obtained by POLITICO.

The cohesive theme from the stage and elsewhere in Dallas was the culmination of months of planning from GOP operatives, who have been forecasting that November’s midterms will be won or lost over whether Americans believe that Democrats are radical and ready to kill the American dream. SLF president Alex Latcham told POLITICO in July: “This needs to be an election about fear.”

A senior House GOP operative, granted anonymity to discuss internal party strategy, said the party needs to make the midterms “a choice, not a referendum.”

“Republicans would be well served to paint that choice in as clear terms as possible,” the operative said.

But it’s unclear whether voters in less-friendly territory than a heavily-scripted convention full of MAGA hats will buy that argument in November — even in the deep red states and districts where Republicans are suddenly playing defense.

“The right strategy is not just to attack the other side and attack those policy proposals,” said Bill Riggs, spokesperson for Americans for Prosperity Action, the Koch-backed GOP-aligned super PAC. “You need to do that, but it’s not going to be enough. You also have to be providing a credible alternative to voters that they trust. Driving that contrast is where we’re continuing to advocate.”

Some speakers touted the Republican tax cuts passed last year and other Trump economic policies as their response to voters’ concerns about the economy. One of the few forward-looking suggestions for alleviating voters’ economic hardships came from the president himself, who pledged to issue a $5,000 dividend to every adult American if Republicans retain control of Congress.

That drew private eyerolls from some Republicans who said the proposal directly clashes with their effort to paint the midterms as a choice between commonsense Republicans and socialist Democrats. “We’re supposed to be fighting socialism,” said one House Republican granted anonymity to speak candidly. “This seems a lot like socialism.”

History hasn’t been kind to parties that rely mostly on a contrast over a forward-looking message, ask for patience during tough economic times, or blame the other party for their woes.

In 2024, Democrats constantly warned of the threat of Trump’s return to power and stressed that inflation was coming down — only to be pummeled at the ballot box by voters who were fed up with the economy. The same was true in 2010 for Democrats.

Iowa Republican House candidate Joe Mitchell, like many other Republicans in Dallas, laid the current economic conditions at the feet of Democrats — and namely former President Joe Biden.

“Voters in Iowa aren’t dumb,” Mitchell said on the sidelines of the convention. “They understand the cost of living went up exponentially under Joe Biden and the Democrats.”

“I know what a stack of bills looks like on the kitchen table,” GOP Rep. Monica De La Cruz (R-Texas) said during her speech. “And for four years, Joe Biden and his party made that stack taller.”

Some Republicans openly acknowledged from the stage in Dallas that their pitch to voters needs to extend beyond serving as a bulwark against Democrats.

“It’s not enough just to defend,” said Mike Bouchard, who’s running in the battleground Michigan 10th District. “We must advance, and to do that, we must have real solutions.”

Meredith Lee Hill, Erin Doherty, Cheyanne M. Daniels, Jalen Beckford and Ashley Ahn contributed to this report. 

Fonte: POLITICO – TOP Stories