Exclusive: Nancy Pelosi targeted in more than a third of GOP House commercials

Craig Gilbert | USA TODAY NETWORK

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WASHINGTON — Nancy Pelosi has long been a favorite target of GOP attack ads. But Republicans seem to be taking it to another level in this election cycle.

The House Democratic leader has been featured in roughly one-third (34%) of all GOP broadcast ads aired in House races this year, according to data provided to the USA TODAY NETWORK by Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group (CMAG), which tracks political advertising.

That compares with 9% in all of 2016 and 13% in 2014.

“Obama’s departure and the lack of a Clinton presidency has left Pelosi as the de facto stand-in as head of the Democratic Party” and shorthand to Republican voters for “liberal big government,” said Erika Franklin Fowler, a Wesleyan University political scientist who co-directs the Wesleyan Media Project, which analyzes broadcast advertising in federal elections.

The key example of the strategy so far this year was the hard-fought special election for Pennsylvania’s 18th congressional district, where 58% of GOP spots mentioned the San Francisco Democrat, according to CMAG.

In last year’s special election in Georgia’s sixth district (the most expensive US House race ever), 55% of Republican spots featured Pelosi.

The 2018 ad wars are still in their infancy, but “you’re going to see a lot of her,” said GOP pollster Gene Ulm of Public Opinion Strategies, calling Pelosi “the gift that keeps on giving.”

“We’re going to spend millions and millions of dollars reminding voters across the country why Nancy Pelosi is bad for the country,” said Corry Bliss, director of the Congressional Leadership Fund, a GOP super PAC and major spender in House races. “Nancy Pelosi is the most toxic, unpopular politician in American politics, period, end of discussion.”

Democratic strategists point out that this approach failed to produce a victory March 13 in Pennsylvania’s GOP-leaning 18th district, where Democratic winner Conor Lamb distanced himself from Pelosi, saying he would not back her for leadership if he won.

"They chose to go this route mainly out of a lack of anything else to talk about,” Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said of the GOP strategy. “When you’re the party in charge and your president is in the White House, the mid-terms will be about the president and his party. There is no way around that. There is no historical correlation between who wins a mid-term and who is the minority leader of the House of Representatives.”

Democratic pollster Mark Mellman said attempting to tie Democratic candidates to Pelosi “doesn’t really add anything to the power of the attack – it’s like saying, ‘You’re a Democrat!' I think it’s a relative waste of their time, effort and energy.”

Citing the low public standing of the Republican-led Congress, Mellman said, “They are trying to make up for their own problems.”

The pollster did concede that the strategy is “sowing some discord on the Democratic side,” as some Democrats running in more conservative districts break with Pelosi.

Pelosi’s high negatives in national polls make her a handy target for the GOP: In a March poll by NBC and The Wall Street Journal, 21% of Americans viewed her positively, 43% negatively. (Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan’s ratings were not quite as bad: 24% viewed him positively, 37% negatively).

The last time Pelosi was so central to the GOP message was when she was House speaker in 2010 and Republicans won a wave election. But a big question now is whether attacking her loses some of its sting with Democrats completely out of power. Midterms are more typically a referendum on the party in charge, with the president’s job ratings a far larger factor than the popularity of a minority leader in Congress. Another question is whether the attacks resonate beyond the GOP base.

“Pelosi is going to be front and center (for Republicans) until she doesn’t work anymore … They’re going to try to roll Nancy out for one more cycle and see if that is enough to scare enough (GOP) voters to come out in the mid-terms,” said Evan Tracey, a Republican media consultant, former head of CMAG and adjunct professor at George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management.

“We did this with Ted Kennedy for years. It really works with the base, but it’s a wild card to see if younger voters, newer voters or some of these swing middle voters have that same reaction,” Tracey said.

Mobilizing the base is clearly one key goal for Republicans at a time when Democrats are galvanized in their animus toward the Trump presidency. The fear of another Pelosi speakership is motivating to Republican voters for at least one very specific reason, said Ulm, the GOP pollster.

“There is not a Republican in the country that doesn’t realize a return of Nancy Pelosi also means a return to the investigations and potential impeachment of the president,” said Ulm.

Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said that was a strategy built on weakness.

“Every time I see a Nancy Pelosi ad (by Republicans) I think this is going to be really, really good year for us,” said Lake, who said it means the GOP is having trouble running on issues and “having trouble with their base — they’re still fighting to (build) enthusiasm, which we are not.”

Pelosi has been a much more popular advertising target than other congressional leaders in recent years. Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan has been targeted in only 5% of Democratic ads in House races this year, and was targeted in fewer than 2% in 2016, according to CMAG. Democrats have a far more polarizing figure than Ryan they can use in their own advertising — Trump.

But Pelosi is easily the most familiar Democratic symbol left in Washington with Barack Obama out of office, Hillary Clinton mostly off-stage and traditional GOP targets like former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in retirement.

Pelosi is appearing in GOP Senate ads as well this cycle. The conservative group Americans for Prosperity has been airing ads against Senate Democrats Joe Donnelly of Indiana and Claire McCaskill of Missouri, attacking them for opposing the GOP tax cuts and “standing with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi.”