Most of Democratic Sen. Mark Begich's ads were incredibly good, but this one utterly blew up in his face.
The line of attack could have worked. It features a retired Anchorage police officer accusing Republican Dan Sullivan of allowing a sex offender to go free, before describing in graphic detail what that criminal (Jerry Active) did. If all had gone right, Begich could have successfully portrayed Sullivan as someone who didn't have the judgment to be a senator.
Things quickly went wrong for Begich when the family of Active's victims complained. Bryon Collins, the family's lawyer, ordered Begich to take the spot off the air immediately. Collins even told the Begich campaign, "You are tearing this family apart to the point that your ad was so shocking to them they now want to permanently leave the state as quickly as possible." Rather than portraying Sullivan as irresponsible, Begich inadvertently made himself look bad. Begich did try to reach out to the family before running the ad but went ahead with it when they didn't respond. That turned out to be a huge mistake. Begich narrowly lost re-election, and it's not a stretch to say that this commercial made the difference.