Republicans across the most competitive House and Senate races have settled on a closing pitch ahead of Election Day: Democrats are too extreme to be given control of Congress.
To make their case, Republicans are calling renewed attention to a set of cultural issues that hurt the Democratic Party in 2024, among them transgender athletes in women’s sports, border security and the claim that Democrats want socialism. In 2010, with the nation still smarting from a financial crisis, then-President Barack Obama urged voters to stick with his party in midterm elections, rather than return the keys to a Republican Party that he said had driven the national car into a ditch. His party wound up losing 63 House seats that year.
It is an effort, pressed in a flood of TV ads and in President Trump’s rally speeches, to urge voters who are angry about gas prices and broader economic conditions to redirect their frustration away from the party in power. In casting Democrats as out of the mainstream, Republicans are trying to appeal to their voters’ partisan impulses as polls find that many are unmotivated to vote. They also worry that GOP Senate candidates, such as Ken Paxton in Texas and Roger Marshall in Kansas, are drawing lower levels of support than are the party’s gubernatorial candidates. That suggests that some Republicans are backing the Democrat in those Senate races, might skip voting for senator or sit out the election altogether. Democrats have similar problems with their Senate candidates in states such as Michigan. Republicans in some states have leaned heavily on claims that their opponents are out of step with voters by favoring transgender rights. In Ohio, Trump criticized the Democrats’ Senate nominee, Sherrod Brown, saying: “He wants to see men playing in women’s sports. He wants to see transgender mutilation of your children. Many other Democrats in competitive races have sought to distance themselves from the debates over trans rights that were prominent several years ago. Rob Sand, running for governor in Iowa, as well as gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton in Ohio and Rep. One factor helping the GOP effort: Voters in battleground districts have a worse opinion of the Democratic Party than the GOP, some polling shows, suggesting that voters in the most competitive races might be receptive to the Republican claims. “Whether that’s going to be enough to blunt Democratic enthusiasm remains to be seen. Some analysts say that shows it’s hard to persuade voters to look back in time when they make their voting choices rather than react to current conditions.
Don Davis in North Carolina, have all said that their states have regulated transgender participation in sports or gender-affirming care for minors, and so the matter is settled law. “For that reason, finishing with an argument that says ‘Don’t give the other side the keys to Congress’ is our best option,” said GOP pollster Wes Anderson.
