NH-Sen, TX-23: After the Washington Post released the instantly infamous hot mic tape of Donald Trump on Friday, waves of vulnerable Republicans decided that the time was right to unendorse Trump’s presidential campaign and fend for themselves. But unless Reince Priebus has a DeLorean in the RNC’s garage, those legions of Republican candidates can’t turn back time and take back their past declarations of support for The Donald.
And while Republican politicians can pretend that they didn’t know what kind of person Trump really was until they heard him brag about sexually assaulting women, Democrats don’t need to sit around and let them get away with it. Now two Democrats in competitive races, New Hampshire Senate candidate Maggie Hassan and Texas U.S. House candidate Pete Gallego, are out with ads velcroing their opponents back to Trump.
Last week, Hassan pounced after a debate where Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte inexplicably declared that Trump was a good model for children. Hassan’s new commercial is modeled after the ad she ran against Ayotte after her debate blunder but before the Trump tapes were released. The spot once again starts with the moderator asking Ayotte, “Would you tell a child to aspire to be like Donald Trump? Would you point to him as a role model” and the senator responding, “Absolutely, I would do that.” The commercial proceeds to show Trump declaring, “I'd look her in that fat ugly face,” before it continues to show a portion of the Trump tape. The viewer hears Trump bragging:
“I moved on her like a [expletive deleted]. I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Kiss, kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they’ll let you do it. You can do anything.”
The ad then shows an old piece of footage where Trump is asked if he treats women with respect: Trump smiles, and laughingly says, “I can’t say that either.” The spot ends the way it began, with Ayotte affirming that she’d point to Trump as a role model. Notably, the ad does not include Trump's most offensive statement: that his preferred m.o. with women is to "grab them by the pussy.”
Gallego, who is running in Texas’ 23rd Congressional District against Republican Rep. Will Hurd, goes in a different direction. Gallego stands in a courtroom and looks directly at the camera and declares that when he worked as a prosecutor, he was tough, but fair. He continues by noting, “Courageous leaders in both parties have spoken out. That Donald Trump must never be our commander in chief. Congressman Hurd waited until it was too late to speak out about Donald Trump.” A narrator then jumps in and says, “Even after Trump insulted Hispanics, women, people with disabilities, and military families.” Gallego comes back and says he believes “in country, not party, first.”
Texas’ 23rd, which stretches from San Antonio to the El Paso area, backed Mitt Romney 51-48. However, this seat has a huge Hispanic population, and Trump was a liability for Hurd here even before Friday. However, plenty of other Democrats in competitive races have chosen not to tie their opponents to Trump. Democratic field tests have reportedly shown that this just hasn’t been an effective line of attack in many contests, on account of swing voters believing that Trump is too extreme to actually reflect the entire GOP.
But now that the Trump campaign is imploding as never before and Republican politicians are scrambling to explain why they supported Trump until the final month of the campaign, Democrats have an opportunity to shift the conversation. Both Hassan and Gallego’s ads show how it can be done. Hassan’s spot mostly lets Trump make the case against himself, and leaves the viewer wondering how Ayotte could ever have supported him in the first place. Gallego’s commercial makes opposition to Trump a moral case, and argues that Hurd has his chance to do the right thing and failed. The same can be said about almost every other Republican politician in America.