President Doanld Trump is so ingrained in voters’ minds that Democrats aren’t pummeling Republicans with the same quantity of ads linking them to the president as they did in 2016. | Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo Elections Trump fades to background of House ad wars The president was the centerpiece of House Democrats' ads in 2016, but he's in only a small fraction of them this year.

EAGAN, Minn. — In the 2016 battle for the House, President Donald Trump was the star of the show. This year, in most districts, he’s the background music — at least in the TV ad wars.

The president’s policies and approval rating are still huge factors in the Democratic drive to retake the majority. But Trump is already so ingrained in voters’ minds — and their impressions of their members of Congress — that Democrats aren’t pummeling Republicans with the same quantity of ads linking them to Trump as they did in 2016. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and House Majority PAC, the biggest Democratic outside spenders in House races, aired 65 Trump-themed TV ads in more than 20 key districts in the final weeks of the 2016 election, according to Advertising Analytics. So far in October 2018, the groups have aired just 14 Trump-themed ads in eight districts.


The shift is starkest in the Minneapolis suburbs, where the candidates in one key race are the same, but the campaign is playing out on different terms. Democrat Angie Craig is in a rematch with freshman GOP Rep. Jason Lewis, a former radio host the DCCC branded “mini-Trump” in a 2016 ad. This year, Democrats have instead hit Lewis on raising money from “special interests” and becoming “all Washington.”

At a recent forum with the campaign finance reform group End Citizens United, Craig trained her criticism on Lewis and left Trump largely unmentioned. Craig’s special-interest criticism, along with votes on the Republican health care and tax plans in 2017, have instead fueled House Democrats’ closing arguments in this campaign.

“I don’t feel like I have to talk about anything other than what I am going to fight for and Jason Lewis’ voting record,” Craig said in an interview following the forum, adding that “people know who the president is now, and they didn’t in 2016.”

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Voters here echoed Craig’s move. Diane Murray, a 67-year-old Democrat who attended the event, praised Craig for “keeping it focused on her good message,” rather than getting “distracted” by Trump. “I hope other Democrats do the same,” she added.

“Trump is deeply unpopular in the suburbs, double-digits underwater in so many places, so there’s an opening for Democrats — but Trump is also baked in,” said Charlie Kelly, the executive director of the Democrat-aligned House Majority PAC. “The path forward is focusing on economic, kitchen table issues and a strong contrast on the GOP tax vote.”

Some Democratic candidates and outside groups are still explicitly linking Trump to the Republican incumbents in areas where the president is especially unpopular. In Virginia, Democrat Jennifer Wexton is calling Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) “Trump-stock” in TV ads — “voting with Trump 98 percent of the time,” the ad says. In California, a DCCC TV ad says Rep. Mimi Walters (R-Calif.) and Trump “turned their backs on Orange County.” And in Denver, the DCCC recut Colorado Rep. Mike Coffman’s 2016 ad promising to stand up to Trump, adding that he “voted with Trump more than any Colorado member of Congress.”

In these cases, Democrats believe the attack can work now in a way it couldn’t in 2016 because voters “assumed Hillary Clinton would win in 2016 and they wanted a check and balance on her,” said Ian Russell, a Democratic consultant and former DCCC political director. “Now the shoe is on the other foot.” Democrats in 23 House districts lost in 2016 even as Clinton painted their turf blue at the presidential level.

In the affluent western Minneapolis suburbs, Democrat Dean Phillips called Trump the “catalyst” for his decision to run for Congress and for his district’s rapid transformation into a battleground after decades of Republican control. Democrats hoped Trump would help them flip the district in 2016 — seven of the nine TV ads the party ran on broadcast TV linked incumbent Republican Rep. Erik Paulsen to Trump, but Paulsen won handily.

Now, the Republican is trailing Phillips in public polls and facing a stream of attacks on health care and campaign finance. Though Phillips does hit Paulsen for voting with Trump in one TV ad, the connection has already been on voters’ minds.

“I think Donald Trump affected many in this district the same way he affected me,” Phillips said in an interview with POLITICO before greeting voters streaming into a Friday night football game at Wayzata High School. A few of those voters thanked Phillips for running against Paulsen and Trump, though most stopped by Phillips’ campaign truck for a free cup of hot chocolate.

“When Trump was elected, I was devastated. I have voted for both sides of the aisle, but his campaign just sickened me,” said Sarah Eigenmann, a 59-year-old Phillips volunteer who has voted for Paulsen in the past. “Trump woke us up here, and people are really anxious about him.”

Paulsen was first out of the gate with a Trump-themed TV ad this year: In his first spot of 2018, Paulsen said that “when President Trump tried to take away important environmental protections for the Boundary Waters, I said, ‘No way.’”

“I’ve got a good brand of bipartisanship,” Paulsen said, before launching a round of canvassers on a crisp October morning. “It’s a salient point to make for those who may not be enamored of Trump.”

Paulsen wasn’t the first candidate to do this. Coffman aired several ads in September saying that he “isn’t afraid to challenge his own party,” while Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.) says in his TV ads that he doesn’t “take orders from any party.”

But the risks are too high for most Republicans to do that, even in districts where the president may be unpopular. “The problem for those candidates is that by moving to the center to get swing voters, it can cost you in your base,” said Mike DeVanney, a Republican consultant based in Pennsylvania. “If you’re a Republican candidate in a swing district, you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”

And no matter how many ads he’s in, Trump is enmeshed in this year’s House elections.

“The president is an issue for a lot of people here,” said Andy Knuppel, a University of Minnesota freshman who volunteered to knock on doors for Paulsen’s campaign. “It’s hard to be a moderate right now. It’s next to impossible.”