GOP spends ‘F*ck You Money’ in blue seats as polls tilt their way to the midterms

The closing days of the 2022 half-term presented the money-rushing Republican PACs with an opportunity too good to be missed: owning Libyans by getting them to spend money in dependable blue benches.

“We are able to play in areas that Biden won by more than 10 points, which shows how weak Democrats are in two weeks,” one GOP strategist told The Daily Beast.

Not without strategic advantage. Republicans insist that irritating voters in places like New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Oregon — trusted liberal strongholds — are heading in their direction. Inflation, gas prices and crime were the driving forces behind multimillion-dollar ad purchases in areas where total external spending didn’t even cross six figures, a sign of the Republican Party’s last-minute rise and embrace of midterm map expansion.

In some races, these issues, especially crime, have proven to be the party’s main bet to attract white suburban voters who may have lost out in 2020 when former President Donald Trump was at the top of the list.

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a little bit of mischief in play. Because some of those blue targets are due to what one Republican activist described as “fuck your money” or investments in a district just to broaden the Democrats’ reach.

One notable case study might be the growing re-election fight for Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY)—who also happened to be the chair of the House Democrats’ primary fundraising arm—where $4 million increase in PAC spending of the House Leadership Fund, an outside group allied to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), necessitated $600,000 cash From the Maloney Special Committee.

“If you put $7 million behind a ham and cheese sandwich, that sandwich would be competitive in this region,” Maloney, the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said recently. New York times.

Democratic activists still take the spending spree seriously.

“I think it’s three pieces,” a Democratic strategist told The Daily Beast, who also requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak on behalf of their campaigns. “Make us play defense where we don’t want to play defense. Expand the map, because you can pick up one or two of these when there’s no chance that Kevin McCarthy looks like a genius.”

the third part?

The activist added, “The last piece is that there are some crazy people who think these seats are actually viable.”

For a New York State Republican Party strategist, things haven’t been so well since the heyday of former Governor George Pataki, the last Republican to win statewide, in 2002.

“It’s not so much that we’re expecting a red wave, it’s more a red, white and blue wave where you have center-left independent Democrats and rational voters who just see the Democrats’ messaging as too extreme,” the New York Republican told the Daily Beast, listing the usual suspects of inflation, crime and immigration. as major issues.

“Maybe they could have made it to the finish line in more races if the economy had been better,” he added.

Connecticut, which voted for President Biden by 20 points, saw an increase in overseas spending.

The fifth congressional district in the western part of the state has attracted the most outside spending, with spending totaling $7.2 million to date, an astronomical increase from just $68,000 in 2020. Although the region’s average partisan sentiment has remained the same After redistricting — Democrats still favored by a 3-point average — second-term Democratic Representative Jahanna Hayes became the main target for the Connecticut Republican Party in this cycle.

Her opponent, former state Republican Senator George Logan, was the only black Republican legislator in the state legislature during his time in office,

“Outside group activity is off the charts — not just here but at federal competitions,” said Erica Franklin Fowler, professor at Wesleyan University and director of the Wesleyan Media Project, one of the pioneers in ad tracking. Connecticut Public Radio.

“I don’t remember the last time, if any, that the Hartford Media Market ranked highest in the media markets.”

In Oregon, the 6th congressional district has become the hot race for external spending despite being seen as an easy win for Democrats in a newly tied seat with constituencies that voted for Biden by 13 points in 2020. Republican candidate Mike Erickson – an anti-abortion candidate Recently approved by former Democrat Tulsi Gabbard Who allegedly took a woman to an ATM for Paying for an abortion In 2001 – he played crime as the main issue.

Erickson said of voters in Beaver, which he described in Fox News Interview “As a welcome base for drug users, criminals, homeless camps and all the crimes that go with it.”

Despite an abortion scandal dating back more than a decade into his career, Ericsson leads Democrat Andrea Salinas by an average of over 4 points, according to FiveThirtyEight’s tracker.

If the uptrend in the GOP consultant class is caused by anything beyond polling tightening, it won’t necessarily have an impact on early voting so far — at least in New York — where Democrats are the only group of registered voters who raised their turnout early. absentee voting, with This course is superior The otherwise high participation rate for 2018 and into 2020 cycles.

Direct in-person voting began October 29 in New York.

“Look, in the midterm elections, Republicans are historically edging out their disadvantage of attending schools in New York,” Steve Greenberg, a pollster at Siena College, told The Daily Beast. “The question is before how much.”

Greenberg also cited the Maloney race as an example.

“They’re chasing Maloney in 17th place with a lot of spending,” Greenberg continued. Congresswoman Stefanik thinks the Republicans can win 15 of 26 seats in New York. It seems illogical to me, but we don’t play these games on paper, we play them in the field of elections.”

The McCarthy PAC has taken a bold approach in recent weeks, but they believe there are enough incumbent Democrats who are holding back in their reelection battles to justify a move to bluer territory.

“Out of the 21 occupants we spend against, we[’ve] I got 14 at 47 percent or less,” Dan Coston, president of the McCarthy-aligned PAC, said. To Politico in a podcast interview Thursday. “We think if you’re 47 percent or less at this point in the cycle, you’re a sitting duck. Most are 45 percent or less. So we feel good about that.”

The Democratic strategist also acknowledged that even in races where the GOP nominee loses but slashes the margins well below expectations, there is a positive side to McCarthy in his long-running and illustrious quest to become Speaker of the House.

“I don’t want to give him too much credit, but I don’t think anyone can really say with 100% certainty that Kevin McCarthy is going to be a Republican,” the strategist said.

And they continued, “So I think he really needs to do some of these things,” not only to show his fundraising ability – which has always been really good, frankly – but also to prove he’s smart enough and can play where people wouldn’t expect him to. “.



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