Freshman Democrat Brad Ashford is defending an Omaha district that backed Mitt Romney by a 53-46 margin, so in a seat that red, he should be the GOP’s top House target. However, Ashford has only drawn two weak Republican opponents in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District. The GOP establishment has consolidated behind retired Brig. General Don Bacon, but while his meager $162,000 warchest is very bad for what should be a top-tier race, it’s still a whole lot better than the feeble $34,000 that ex-state Sen. Chip Maxwell has at his disposal.
Republicans aren’t exactly fond of Maxwell, who briefly threatened to run for this seat as an independent last cycle even though it would have cost then-Rep. Lee Terry conservative votes. (In the end, it didn’t matter, since Maxwell never followed through and Terry improbably lost to Ashford anyway, despite the GOP wave.) But Democrats like Maxwell just fine. In fact, given how weak a candidate he is, they'd prefer to run against him rather than Bacon, which is why the DCCC is spending $437,000 on a TV ad aiming to help Maxwell win the May 10 primary.
No, Democrats aren’t running commercials that explicitly say, “Vote for Chip Maxwell.” Instead, the DCCC is out with a spot that’s “attacking” Maxwell in just the sort of way that ought to make him more appealing to GOP primary voters.
The narrator implores voters to look up the facts about both Bacon and Maxwell, warning that Bacon was “the hand-picked candidate of the Washington political establishment.” But Maxwell is characterized as “a self-professed tea party conservative,” and the narrator continues by noting he wants to repeal Obamacare and wouldn’t raise the federal debt limit.
If this strategy sounds familiar, it’s because it’s exactly what Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill did in the 2012 GOP primary in Missouri. McCaskill wanted to face then-Rep. Todd Akin, who already had a reputation as a far-right candidate even though he had yet to utter his infamous “legitimate rape” comments, but Akin needed help getting past two other more electable opponents in the GOP primary. So McCaskill ran ads “blasting” Akin as "pro-family" and "too conservative for Missouri”—“attacks” that of course only endeared Akin to Republican primary voters. Without knowing it, Republicans did exactly what McCaskill wanted and handed her the perfect opponent. The rest was history.
Plenty of political observers knew exactly what McCaskill was doing at the time, just as anyone paying attention knows exactly what the DCCC is trying now. However, this strategy relies on one simple fact: Most voters just don’t care enough about downballot primaries to realize that they’re being manipulated. If someone tried this in a presidential primary, such tactics would be incredibly obvious. But since so few voters follow House races, most of what they’ll learn will be from TV ads like this one, and the DCCC’s message may very well get through without there being any backlash. And with a $437,000 price tag only a few weeks ahead of Election Day, plenty of people will see this ad.
We’ll find out soon if Bacon spends his meager funds promoting his own conservative credentials on the airwaves or trying to inform voters that his opponent is Team Blue’s choice—or if, perhaps, national Republicans show up to counter the DCCC. If not, the DCCC’s ads may wind up as the dominant message primary voters see between now and May 10. And even if it doesn’t work and Ashford has to face Bacon, he should have a good shot to hold on. While Ashford initially was reluctant to raise money to defend his seat, he’s since changed his approach and now has $897,000 in the bank for a race Daily Kos Elections rates as a Tossup.