Election Preview Part 1 – Ad Spending, the Battle for Congress, and Ballot Measures
Donald Trump has made the defense of his campaign’s strategy to go all in on aggressive and ugly nativism a part of his stump speech in the closing month of the campaign. “It’s bigger than inflation. It’s bigger than the economy,” Trump told his supporters at his Madison Square Garden rally last weekend, repeating his assertion that the racist fiction that non-white immigrants are the most urgent threat facing the nation and the most pressing issue for working Americans. While Trump is wrong on public opinion, Trump and his allies have invested record-breaking time and treasure into the nativist strategy.
Ugly and aggressive nativism has always been a central part of Trump’s message, but his 2024 campaign crossed a new threshold that is more aligned with fascists than Republicans of the past. From “poisoning the blood” to the sheer volume of anti-immigrant lies and ugliness he spouts at his rallies to his signature policy pledge of unsparing mass deportations that will also likely expel U.S. citizens if recent history is a guide, Trump is running the most anti-immigrant campaign in modern presidential campaign history. Key Trump allies who witnessed and carried out some of the most troubling episodes of Trump’s time in the White House, like former Chief of Staff and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, say Trump embraces authoritarianism, speaks admiringly of Adolf Hitler, and is running the textbook definition of a fascist campaign.
As we have noted, Republicans’ nativist election strategy has failed to deliver repeatedly over the last several cycles. More money and more extremism isn’t likely to make the nativist strategy more efficacious. But with less than a week out, we wanted to take stock of how the issue is being used in the election and identify the key storylines that we are watching with a three-part preview.
The key storylines detailed below:
- Republicans spent over a billion dollars on nativism: Pro-Republican outfits spent over $964 million just on TV ads (to date) with negative mentions of immigrants. Nearly half of all their TV ads mention the issue and the attention is similarly ubiquitous across their other paid communications. Nativism was their main message and we will see if that massive bet pays off at the ballot box.
- Control of the Senate is tighter than expected: Republicans should be in a better position than they are, but extremist candidates with little to offer beyond strategic bigotry could again cost Republicans what was supposed to be a winnable majority. Millions of dollars have been dumped into nativist attacks and Republican candidates have been deafeningly silent at the top of the ticket’s fascist campaigning. Likewise, they have also largely tried to dodge the ugly details of the signature campaign issue – mass deportation.
- Control of the House – Republicans in denial of the top of the ticket: Control of the House is likely to be a tight race and the battleground Republicans who will determine the majority are supporting Trump but are in denial of the fascism and mass deportations that would wreck their districts.
- Republicans will continue to push the Big Lie 2.0, eroding confidence in American democracy: Republicans in eight states have placed meaningless measures on the ballot reaffirming existing law to create the pretext for making it harder for working people to vote and further normalize the widely debunked conspiratorial lie that there is a plot by liberal elites to manipulate immigrants into casting fraudulent votes in order to steal the election.
Republicans have spent record amounts of money on anti-immigrant messages
With just days until November 5, Republicans’ closing message is nothing if not consistent – ‘your well-being, your future, and that of the nation’s, rests on a purge of the mass parasitic foreigners living amongst us.’ Republican-aligned campaigns are on track to spend well over a billion dollars this year in an attempt to sell this nativist lie to American voters.
To date, Republican candidates, committees and superPACs have spent $964 million on 1,892 unique TV ads that mention immigration so far this year, according to data pulled from AdImpact. As we noted in our report last month, this spend is a massive increase over years past with over four times as much money spent on the issue than the record-breaking number in 2022.
The nativism led the GOP attacks. As the Wesleyan Media Project found, 43% of all pro-Republican ads pushed immigration messages in September and 42% in August.
In this election cycle, Republican-aligned campaigns produced 3,229 Facebook/Meta ads and 1,575 emails using “border” that we have tracked. 766 of those Facebook/Meta ads and 192 email ads used the “invasion” rhetoric. There is a serious lack of transparency in digital ad spending, particularly on specific issue topics, but a joint report by the Brennan Center, OpenSecrets, and the Wesleyan Media Project identified over $619 million on political ads on Meta and Google. Of note this total also doesn’t include the pervasive political ads on X/Twitter this cycle, though the political spend on the platform is much less than the others.
Obviously, the ads range in their ferocity towards immigrants, many – some $52 million dollars worth – have pushed the white nationalist “invasion” conspiracy theory, while many more push more subtle anti-immigrant myths and themes. However, campaigns do not operate in a vacuum, and no one can ignore such a massive investment. If Republicans largely underperform on election day, their nativism won’t be the only thing to blame, but it should be the death knell to the persistent conventional wisdom that strategic xenophobia is a winning election play.
The battle for the Senate
The election will also determine control of the U.S. Senate, where Democrats risk losing control of the chamber, facing a difficult map and the narrowest of majorities. The retirement of West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, which is all but assured to flip to a Republican, and Jon Tester’s reelection campaign in deep-red Montana make this an especially challenging task for the Democrats.
Republicans and their allies have made scapegoating immigrants a central line of attack in all the contested Senate battlegrounds. There has been a combined $308 million spent on Republican-aligned campaigns with negative immigration messaging in Senate campaigns. Of course, elections are complex and turn on many interdependent variables, with the issue of immigration not likely to solely determine any of these races. But here are some of the storylines we will be watching.
In Ohio, out of the $128 million spent from Republican-aligned campaigns with negative immigration messaging, $114 million was spent on the Ohio U.S. Senate race. The Republican candidate, Bernie Moreno, is an immigrant himself. Born in Colombia, Moreno is looking to become the definitional example of “slamming the door shut behind you” when it comes to immigration. Moreno has touted support for mass deportations, stating, “If you’re in this country illegally, listen clearly — listen very clearly. Starting in January 2025, you will be deported.” And like most Republicans this cycle, Moreno has regularly invoked white nationalist “invasion” rhetoric when talking about immigrants. The crypto industry has also been a major factor here, spending millions demonizing immigrants in TV ads, hoping they can buy an ally in Moreno.
In Pennsylvania, Republicans have spent more money than anywhere else on anti-immigrant messages. Republican-aligned campaigns spent $160 million on negative immigration TV ads. $49 million of the spending was used on the PA U.S. Senate race, attacking Democrat Senator Bob Casey Jr. with lots of strategic xenophobia to peddle the lie that immigration comes at the direct expense of those born in the United States.
In Arizona, Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego and failed 2022 Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake are vying for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by retiring Senator Kyrsten Sinema. Gallego has maintained a comfortable lead against Lake, who has continued spouting conspiracy theories, election denialism and still never conceded her 2022 gubernatorial race. In 2022, she ran ads that promised to declare war on migrants on day one. Despite her previous loss using this same exact model, she hasn’t changed much of anything in her race against Gallego. Her focus in the attack ads has been to push a replacement theory lie about immigrants polluting the ballot box. $36 million was spent on anti-immigration TV ad messaging in Arizona, with $19.6 million used just on the Arizona Senate race. Gallego, meanwhile, could prove to be a pivotal ally on immigration if elected, supporting an approach that combines border management with a pathway to legalization for long-settled immigrants, including DACA recipients.
Over in Nevada, Republican Sam Brown is challenging Democratic incumbent Jacky Rosen, who also publicly campaigned on the “both/and” approach to immigration (a secure border AND legal immigration and legalization), and during a recent debate, notably pressed Brown on the mass deportation details that Republicans refuse to discuss. Like Trump and Vance, Brown deflected and “did not offer specifics on how the potential policy may be carried out,” Politico reported. “How many innocent people would be rounded up?” Rosen asked him.
Republican-aligned campaigns spent $28.9 million on anti-immigration TV ads in Nevada and $12.9 million was spent just in the Nevada U.S. Senate race. Notably the TV ad using the great replacement conspiracy theory that the “country is under siege” and he’ll “stop the invasion of the border” $622,463 spent in Las Vegas and Reno with 23.5M impressions.
The Texas and Florida Senate races are considered a far reach for Democrats, but both have remained close. Republican Ted Cruz (TX) has doubled down hard on his extremism. In his remarks at this past summer’s Republican National Convention, Cruz claimed we are facing “a literal invasion” and that Democrats have “cynically decided they wanted votes from illegals more than they wanted to protect our children.” Let’s be clear: these dangerous replacement lies actively endanger our democracy and instigate the possibility of more political violence and attacks against immigrants. But out of the other side of his mouth, Cruz has also spent at least $6 million in cynical advertising to reach out to Latino voters in the state, including Spanish-language ads in nearly two dozen markets and bilingual texts targeting the Rio Grande Valley region. Meanwhile, Republican Rick Scott (FL), also a longtime promoter of the replacement theory rhetoric, has tried to do the same disingenuous nativist shuffle. While Scott soft-pedaled his criticism of the racist “joke” calling Puerto Rico an “island of garbage” to grab headlines, two days later, he appeared on the white nationalist Laura Loomer’s show to heap praise on the bigot who publicly denigrated Puerto Ricans.
House races to look out for
In Arizona’s Sixth Congressional District, Republican Rep. Juan Ciscomani is again being challenged by Kristen Engle after narrowly defeating the Democrat in 2022. But while Rep. Ciscomani represents an agricultural region with a proud and rich immigrant history, which highly depends on an immigrant workforce, he’s repeatedly voted with the most extreme and nativist members of his caucus. Ciscomani has also remained silent as his Republican friends have lied about the 2020 election and echoed the same white nationalist replacement conspiracy theories. Despite failing to stand up to his friends who are attacking and dehumanizing many of his constituents, Ciscomani has run closing ads with part of his family championing the fact that “we’re immigrants.”
California’s 22nd Congressional District: After narrowly losing reelection to California’s 21st Congressional District in 2018, GOP Rep. David Valadao won back the seat in 2020 by campaigning as a different sort of Republican, including featuring Dreamers in his campaign ads. In 2022, he was redistricted to California’s 22nd, another heavily-Latino and agriculture-rich district that he won by just 3,000 votes. But while Rep. Valadao has talked about the need for immigration reform, the current session of the U.S. Congress has seen him repeatedly vote with the most extreme and nativist members of his caucus. One recent poll has Valadao’s Democratic competitor, former California Assembly member Rudy Salas, trailing him by just two points, with eight percent undecided. Salas lost his 2022 bid against Valadao by just 3,000 votes, and in a district that would’ve gone to President Biden in 2020 under current redistricting, making this one of the most competitive House races.
In New York’s Fourth Congressional District, Republican Rep. Anthony D’Esposito is also in one of the most closely watched races of 2024, facing a fierce rematch with Democrat Laura Gillen in a district that President Biden won by nearly 15 points in 2020. D’Esposito has sought to portray himself as moderate but has echoed deadly “invasion” rhetoric on his website. D’Esposito, who is of Puerto Rican heritage, has also continued to support Trump despite the recent rally where a speaker launched theracist “island of garbage” attack. Gillen, a former Hempstead Town Supervisor, has taken a both/and approach to immigration and the border, supporting improved border management and an earned pathway to citizenship for the nation’s undocumented immigrants.
In Virginia’s Second Congressional District, after vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance knowingly spread racist lies about Black immigrants in his home state of Ohio, and Trump’s call for their mass deportation and stripping of the legal status, Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans was deafeningly silent. Kiggans’ has endorsed the Trump/Vance campaign but is trying to sell another image to voters in her battleground district. One of Kiggans’ closing TV ads is a testimonial about how Kiggans’ was helpful in securing a visa for another Black immigrant. Like many battleground Republicans, Kiggans hopes that voters won’t look too closely at the stark contradictions between the top of the ticket and her own position as she attempts to dance the nativist shuffle.
In Michigan’s Eighth Congressional District, Republicans are hoping to maintain their House majority by picking up the toss-up seat vacated by retiring Democratic Rep. Dan Kildee. Republican candidate Paul Junge is vying for this seat by launching a pernicious ad against his Democratic opponent, state Senator Kristen McDonald Rivet, by claiming that “she invites the invasion,” echoing the deadly conspiracy theory spewed by racist mass murderers. DHS has repeatedly said that right-wing extremists pose the greatest domestic terror threats, yet its Junge who demurred when questioned on the Proud Boys in 2020. On her website, McDonald Rivet says she “will fight for robust enforcement at the southern border, cracking down on drug and sex traffickers, fixing the legal immigration processes, and an earned pathway to citizenship for those here who want to work hard, pay taxes, and follow our laws.”
In Washington’s Third District, Democratic incumbent Marie Gluesenkamp-Perez is again facing Joe Kent, who has close and prominent ties to leading white nationalists and made the deadly “invasion” conspiracy a key part of his failed 2022 campaign. Going into election night 2022, Kent was supposed to have a huge advantage given the partisan lean of the district but it was clear his extremism was a real barrier to a GOP win here, losing to Gluesenkamp-Perez in a major upset. Now in another rematch against Gluesenkamp-Perez, Kent has continued to be the poster boy for embracing extremism and white nationalism that have cost Republicans, including him, wins at the ballot box. Kent has endorsed the expulsion of families in his district and across the U.S., stating that we “need to do mass deportations on the people who have come here illegally… We need to be hiring Americans and paying Americans living wages.”
Eight states have noncitizen voter initiatives to declare illegal something that’s already illegal
Unfortunately, pernicious fiction about widespread noncitizen voting is also being pushed by Republicans in state legislatures, where noncitizens are also already prohibited from voting in statewide elections.
In Idaho, Kentucky, Missouri, South Carolina, and Wisconsin, noncitizen voter amendments will appear on their respective ballots, where the GOP’s baseless panic on this nonexistent issue could now be enshrined in their state’s constitution by the voters. The futility of this made-up issue is perhaps best highlighted in North Carolina, where Republicans have filed a constitutional amendment despite the state constitution already explicitly stating that only citizens can vote.
The initiative would amend “the constitution to say the same thing — just with slightly different wording,” WRAL reported in May. “But since it doesn’t appear the amendment would make any real changes, critics have said it’s nothing more than an effort to boost Republican voter turnout in this year’s presidential election by misleading people into thinking they need to take action to stop immigrants from voting.”
While West Virginia Republicans sought to put a noncitizen voter amendment on the ballot, the effort was successfully filibustered by a Democratic member of the House of Delegates, who pointed out the obvious to his colleagues. “I just don’t think it is necessary to change the Constitution for something that’s already in state code and isn’t taking place,” said Delegate Mike Pushkin. “It’s hard enough to get citizens to vote.”
The Dominion Post reported in March that Delegate Pushkin “said that several times over in various ways, constantly checking his watch, and earning some chuckles around the chamber by doing it. Time ran out and it died.”
Missouri Republicans advanced their effort despite the state’s Republican governor echoing the same sentiment as Puskin. Republican Gov. Mike Parson, in an interview with a Nexstar Media Group reporter in May, also appeared to confirm that state law already bans non-citizens from voting,” The Kansas City Star reported.
Though large majorities of voters supporting both Harris and Trump think it’s important to stop noncitizens from voting, only 35% of Trump supporters are very or somewhat confident that noncitizens will be stopped from voting, compared with 92% of Harris supporters, according to survey results from Pew Research Center released Thursday.
Part two of our election preview, out tomorrow, will look at Elon Musk and Stephen Miller’s significant role in shaping the tone of the election and take a dive into the public opinion research. Part three, out Monday, will focus in on the consequences of a billion-dollar-plus, multi-year campaign to spread dehumanizing lies and conspiracies about immigrants as an election strategy.
