A recent poll from Global Strategy Group for the DCCC argued that, regardless of whether Republican House candidates recently unendorsed Donald Trump or if they continue to stand by him, they were in real danger of losing critical votes. The DCCC is now up with ads in three House contests arguing that the Republican incumbents supported Trump for months when they should have denounced him long ago. Their ads are running against Erik Paulsen in Minnesota’s 3rd District, Cresent Hardy in Nevada’s 4th, and Will Hurd in Texas’ 23rd.
Paulsen, who represents an affluent seat in the Twin Cities suburbs, has been a particularly frustrating target for Team Blue. While Barack Obama carried the seat just 50-49 in 2012, a recent independent poll from SurveyUSA showed Hillary Clinton dominating 48-35 there. However, the same poll gave Paulsen a huge 49-38 lead over Democrat Terri Bonoff; the DCCC’s allies at House Majority PAC also recently cut their entire planned ad buy, another sign that Paulsen is doing well.
If the DCCC wants to win this seat, they’ll need far more anti-Trump voters to take their anger out on Paulsen, and the new ad encourages them to do just that. The narrator argues that Paulsen “has had plenty of time to speak up for Minnesota, and speak out about Donald Trump.” It then shows a clip of Paulsen declaring, “I plan on voting for the nominee.” The commercial goes to feature some of Trump’s worst clips: Trump is shown saying, “You take a look at her. She’s a slob,” “She ate like a pig,” and agreeing that “[t]here has to be some sort of punishment” for a woman who has an abortion. The narrator then reminds the audience that Paulsen has had 18 months to speak out, before the congressman is shown saying, “That shouldn’t be up to any of us to denounce presidential candidates.”
The DCCC tries something similar in the other two races.
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In Texas, they show clips of Trump mocking disabled people, women, and POWs, and the narrator says that Hurd refused to disavow him, and even was open to major cuts to veterans’ care. In Nevada, they go with clips of Trump hypothesizing that "putting a wife to work is a very dangerous thing,” and calling for Planned Parenthood to be defunded. The narrator argues that Hardy backed Trump and has similar policies, while Democrat Ruben Kihuen is the exact opposite. We haven’t seen any recent polls of either House contest.