How Democrats and Republicans Plan to Flip Key Seats

These are the races that will decide Congress

After looking at all the advertising used by incumbent Democrats and incumbent Republicans, I can confidently say that no one, aside from some poor swing voters in suburban Pennsylvania, has watched more political advertising than I have the last few weeks. I’ve been told I murmur “corporate greed” and “open borders” in my sleep.

Nevertheless, this exercise has given us some insight into the language frontline incumbent candidates use to speak to swing voters. In short, we know that Democrats are really comfortable talking about immigration policy, and that Republicans are really uncomfortable talking about abortion. Neither party will utter the words “raise” and “taxes” in the same sentence. And everyone has a “plan” (or at least concepts of one) to lower the cost of living.

The mission, however, is still unfinished. Today, in the final article of the series, we’ll look at ad campaigns from challengers in both parties.

It's no surprise that many challengers echo their party’s core messages, but their messages diverge in key ways from incumbents.

On the Republican side

I gathered transcripts from all the Republican challengers’ ads and plugged them into the word cloud below (you can see the version for incumbents here). The result? Republicans are basically in rhetorical lockstep with Trump and with congressional incumbents. That means beating the drum on Biden’s border policies and singing the same old song on crime and inflation.

But there are some notable differences. While the incumbent Republican candidates try to attract swing voters by highlighting their bipartisan accomplishments, none of that language was used frequently enough to qualify for this challenger word cloud. Instead, since these candidates are not running on a legislative record, we see the language of the proud outsider, with words like “Washington,” “change,” and “politicians” used as attacks against their incumbent opponent.

Most voters despise Congress as an institution, but generally like their own representative, so it’s good politics to sully your opponent with the scent of the swamp.

Every message basically sounds like Ryan Mackenzie in Pennsylvania’s 7th congressional district, “America is on the wrong track and the politicians in Washington are only making it worse with crippling inflation, open borders, rising crime, and their political games — all while we struggle in the real world.”

Interestingly, the only instances I could find of candidates mentioning Trump was during their primary election campaigns. For example, in Maine’s second congressional district, the candidate challenging incumbent representative Jared Golden said in an ad, “ I'm Austin Theriault, former NASCAR driver and small business owner. I'm proud to have President Trump's endorsement.”

But a few months later, he released an ad in which he says, “Most folks I talk to just want lower costs, cheaper gas and electricity, and the certainty of Social Security. They want more balance and less extremism in Washington.” Essentially, this is a word-for- word recitation of something his Jared Golden would say.

The political logic is clear; both candidates are just trying to pick off the persuadable voters who genuinely dislike the candidates at the top of the ticket. Trump voters are already voting for Theriault, and Harris voters are already voting for Jared Golden. The problem for Golden, however, is that Trump commands a solid seven-point lead in the district. And while a recent poll shows him running ahead of Harris, the congressional race is tied and his favorability rating has fallen in recent weeks.

Democratic challengers

The overwhelming focus on abortion and border policy is not surprising. Democratic challengers are playing to their electoral strengths and shoring their electoral weaknesses. Like Democratic incumbents, they’re using economic populist messages. In New York’s 19th congressional district, Josh Riley has an ad that says, “I’m running for Congress to crack down on the corporate price gouging, lower costs, give upstate families a square deal.”

But an interesting difference between the challengers and the incumbents is the relative lack of focus on health care policy. A few candidates mention lowering prescription drug costs in their ads, but the issue does not define their messaging campaigns in the same way it defines incumbent Democrats’. Interestingly, challengers followed the same script as their Republican counterparts — once again, we see words like “Washington” "and “politicians” prominently featured in the word cloud.

A great example of this is New Jersey’s 7th congressional district. Democratic challenger Sue Altman uses two Republican surrogates, who say, “I'm really done with Tom Kean Jr. Kean is your typical say-anything, do-nothing politician. I gave the guy a chance.”

That’s pure political persuasion. In an R+1 congressional district that has voted for both Trump and Biden, Altman is betting her best path to electoral victory is exposing Republican-leaning voters to that ad, and subsequently, getting them to rethink their party commitment. They might still cast a ballot for Trump, but pass on their support for the “do-nothing politician,” Tom Kean Jr.

What these ads don’t tell us

In 2022, Republicans famously underperformed historical expectations because they nominated candidates like Dr. Oz for Pennsylvania Senate, Herschel Walker for Georgia Senate, and a few scattered wackos and MAGA extremists in a tightly contested House races.

Clearly, if we only examined political advertising from last year's campaign, we would miss how these candidates truly came across to swing voters. That's why, along with analyzing their paid media, we must also consider their earned media — an indication of how these candidates seep into the electoral consciousness when they don’t get to control the message.

Overall, this cycle’s slate of down-ballot Republican candidates is somewhat of an improvement over 2022.¹ That said, there are still a few campaigns where the staff probably wishes the candidate only interacted with voters through paid ads.

• In Washington’s 3rd Congressional District, the repeat Republican challenger Joe Kent recently, unprompted, floated a conspiracy that the Secret Service was “in on” the Trump assassination attempt. His previous campaign was unsuccessful because of his connections with white supremacists and a generally extremist platform.

• Republicans had a great opportunity to flip a Senate seat in Wisconsin. But the best candidate they could field is Eric Hovde, a banker who seems to primarily live in Orange County, California, and occasionally generates headlines like this one: “GOP Senate candidate’s business received millions from bank linked to Mexican drug cartel.”

• After her failed 2022 gubernatorial run, Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake promised a more conciliatory campaign. However, her attempts at moderation have largely been ineffective, and she’s almost guaranteed to lose. As one Arizona-based Republican political consultant put it, “Kari Lake just refused to stick to a sustained effort to appeal to moderate and independent voters.'"

Democrats do have a slight advantage on candidate quality, mainly because they managed to fend off weaker candidates in their primaries. But similar to the problem at the top of the ticket, there have been instances where Democratic challengers have had to distance themselves from previous electorally damaging position-taking.

Most notably, in New York’s 17th congressional District, former Congressman Mondaire Jones is hoping to flip a Republican-held seat. But his campaign is ripe for attack because of his previous association with the “Squad’ and support for issues like the Green New Deal and defunding the police. He made strategic decisions to rebrand himself after he lost in 2022, most famously by endorsing the opponent of fellow former squad member Jamal Bowman. Progressive groups responded by rescinding their endorsements. But nevertheless, his opponent’s campaign ads write themselves.

Republicans are losing the ad game

The consensus in political science literature is that in order for ads to be more effective, candidates need to run a lot of tests to determine which message resonates the most with voters, and then massively out-air their opponent. In short, the most effective ad campaigns are the ones with a ton of money behind them.

For the most part, Democratic congressional candidates are winning that game. Last quarter, Democratic challengers out-raised their incumbent opponents in 17 of the 29 most competitive districts. As a result, they’ve been able to air more ads.

This is a departure from where the party stood last year. The Democratic Party has maintained a sizable cash advantage in recent election cycles and, subsequently, been able to air more ads. But last election cycle, that money didn’t necessarily make it to the candidates who needed it the most. According to an analysis by Welcome PAC, “In 8 of the 29 GOP-held districts where Trump received 50-54% of the vote in 2020, Democratic nominees had raised less than $100,000 across the entire cycle.”

I asked Welcome PAC co-founder Liam Kerr if he thought Democratic challengers were better positioned this time around. He noted that “the share of races under $100k has dropped from 8 of 29 to 7 of 32 thus far this cycle.” And ultimately, “Democrats are conceding fewer districts, and positioned to fully compete in more districts. But it is still shocking how many vulnerable Republican incumbents still get a free pass nearly a decade into ‘The Resistance’.”

As we know, winning the ad game isn’t everything. While Democratic candidates seem to have an edge in candidate quality, especially in the Senate races, they’re still facing an electorate that has thermostatically shifted to the right. And the top issues in every opinion survey — border security and cost of living — are not exactly positions where Democrats command the most public trust.

But they’re making the right strategic decisions by hammering their Republican opponents on abortion policy and appealing to voters’ concerns about the border. Still, it’s an open question as to whether it’ll work on Election Day.

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Note: This article has been edited to clarify that Mondaire Jones had previously expressed support for defunding the police, not abolishing the police.

1. I’m aware of what happened in North Carolina’s governor’s race, but we’re only looking at congressional candidates here.