Vulnerable Democratic incumbents are running scared. Several endangered Democratic Senators are running ads that feature their connection to the man that Kamala Harris is telling America will destroy democracy if he wins.
It's no accident that the Democratic candidates embracing Donald Trump at this late stage of the race are all running in swing states.
Senators Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin have both cut ads that feature the former president signing bills they sponsored.
"Tammy Baldwin got President Trump to sign her Made in America bill," says the narrator in Baldwin's ad.
"Casey bucked Biden to protect fracking and he sided with Trump to end NAFTA and put tariffs on China to stop them from cheating," the Casey campaign ad states.
Montana's Senator Jon Tester and Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown have also tried to put distance between them and the toxic Biden-Harris administration.
Both have made concerted efforts to distance themselves from the Biden administration on key issues and present themselves as moderate voices in their party.
Tester ads have featured Montanans who say they are "lifelong Republicans" or plan to vote for Trump, but back Tester for Senate.
An ad from earlier this year boasts that Brown "wrote a bill that Donald Trump signed to crack down on drugs at the border."
What they're saying: "These Senate Democrats all voted to impeach President Trump twice, so it is surprising that they are now running ads praising his work as President," NRSC communications director Mike Berg told Axios in a statement.
The Democratic Senate campaign arm did not return a request for comment.
Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) is locked in a tight race with Republican Rep. Mike Rogers in the Michigan Senate race. She has opposed EV mandates and cut an ad that could have been made by Trump.
“I’m Elissa Slotkin, I live on a dirt road, nowhere near a charging station,” Slotkin said in the ad. “So I don’t own an electric car. No one should tell us what to buy, and no one’s gonna mandate anything. But here’s the thing, if there’s going to be a new generation of vehicles, I want that new generation built right here in Michigan, not China. I approve this message because what you drive is your call, no one else’s.”
It's not only that Biden-Harris policies are unpopular in most swing states. The practice of ticket-splitting is dying out as polarization makes partisanship the rule rather than the exception.
A spit-ticket voter will pick a presidential candidate and a congressional candidate of different parties. Aspit-ticket voter is willing to choose both Republicans and Democrats.
And fewer than 4% of congressional districts went that way in 2020.
That’s compared to over 40% of districts turning in split-ticket results 40 years ago, which Burgat said was “just bananas land when we think about our polarized era.”
And that’s despite Gallup reporting this year that more Americans see themselves as political independents.
Gallup said 43% of people in its polling identified as a political independent, which tied for the high in its tracking that goes back several decades.
It may be that only a small percentage of districts went for a different president and representative/senator. But each ticket-splitting vote is one less vote for your candidate. And in a close race, as most swing state senate races are, ticket-splitters will probably decide the election.
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