Dramatized police dispatch calls of a DUI arrest. Allegations of sexual harassment. Court filings reviewing “failed” business investments.

Those are attacks leveled against Democratic congressional candidates in a new Republican ad campaign in recent days — part of a growing effort to personalize the midterm elections and disqualify individual Democratic hopefuls early in a bid to save the Republican House majority.


National trends are driving the general direction of the 2018 midterms, fueled by strong feelings about health care, taxes, President Donald Trump and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. But with so many first-time candidates running on the Democratic side — without the baggage of legislative voting records or controversial positions adopted over a long public career — and the political environment tilting toward them, GOP efforts to keep them out of the House may hinge on specific personal critiques, vetting them publicly for the first time.

That’s how Congressional Leadership Fund, the Republican super PAC, is starting its campaign against Democrat Sean Casten in Illinois, blasting him for “mismanagement, fraud, greed” at his company in a TV ad released Wednesday. (Casten’s campaign called it “false attacks” in a statement.) The group is also hammering Randy Bryce, the Democratic nominee in Speaker Paul Ryan’s district, over a drunk driving arrest.

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And there's more to come: A review of research materials collected by the National Republican Congressional Committee shows that the campaign committee plans to litigate many more Democrats' professional history, including digging through client and case histories of a half-dozen attorneys running in top battleground districts. CLF set up its own in-house research unit, a first for the group this cycle as it seeks to dig up its own dirt on Senate and House candidates.

“The fact is that the treasure trove of research books on these Democratic candidates is amazing,” said Guy Harrison, a Republican consultant who led the NRCC during the 2010 and 2012 cycles. “It’s probably the deepest and most wacky I’ve ever seen in a cycle.”

“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” Harrison added.

In Wisconsin, CLF’s ads hit Bryce for nine arrests, including driving while under the influence and driving on a suspended license. The ad mimics audio of a police dispatch call, with the narrator saying, “We have a drunk driver in custody … his name is Randy Bryce, repeat offender.”

Bryce apologized in a statement to CNN in July, saying: “There is no excuse for what I did 20 years ago when I got behind the wheel and operated under the influence.”

In California, CLF is airing TV ads that say Democrat Gil Cisneros, who’s running in the race to replace California Rep. Ed Royce, “has been accused of sexual harassment by a prominent Democrat.”

Cisneros’ campaign released a statement on the ad, denying the assault allegations. “Every legitimate news outlet that has researched this false allegation has found that it is simply not true,” said Nic Jordan, a Cisneros spokesman. “There are multiple eyewitnesses, including a local Emmy award-winning television journalist, that fundamentally contradict the alleged events and can verify that the allegations are completely false.”

CLF and other Republican groups aren’t the only ones going personal; the NRCC is already running TV ads in New York attacking Democratic candidates as “liberal” and “radical” followers of Pelosi, another major GOP messaging effort. But Republicans hope that prosecuting these candidates’ personal résumés will define their opponents early, especially since so many challengers don’t have voting records to scrutinize.

“As an outside group, our job is to be the hammer and to attack,” said Courtney Alexander, a spokeswoman for CLF. “The whole purpose of the ads is to define the candidates and set the tone."

Some operatives predicted that voters will see a spike in personal attack ads in 2018, citing an intensely polarized environment “that people aren’t as responsive to ideological messaging anymore," said one Republican consultant who works on House races.

But the profile of some Democratic candidates in 2018 makes the messaging difficult. Take Mikie Sherrill, the Democratic nominee in the open race to replace retiring Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.). She flew helicopters for the Navy and served as a federal prosecutor, and she has positioned herself cautiously on health care and promised she would not support Pelosi for speaker. But Republicans have dug into her prosecutorial record and have signaled they plan to attack her for negotiating a plea deal for a man charged with child pornography during her work as a federal prosecutor.

“Mikie Sherrill claims to have the best interests of children in mind, but as a lawyer, she negotiated a deal with someone who knowingly distributed child pornography,” one research memo reads.

Sherrill’s campaign manager Mollie Binotto called the attack “absurd,” adding in a statement, “all it shows is a bankrupt Republican agenda in Washington that can’t defend its record to voters on taxes, health care or infrastructure."

The NRCC used a similar attack line against Democrat Conor Lamb during the Pennsylvania special election, accusing him of “[negotiating] a plea bargain” for a “drug kingpin” and “dropping 269 charges, allowing the drug kingpin to receive a much weaker sentence” in TV ads. Lamb would go on to win the race in March, flipping a congressional district that backed the president by 20 points.

Democrats argue that this messaging strategy is a sign that Republicans “don’t have anything to run on in terms of issues where the voters are on their side, so they’re going to look for smaller-ball things to try and discredit candidates,” said Brian Smoot, a Democratic consultant who served as the DCCC’s political director in 2008. “This is a bigger picture election."

In 2010, Democrats deployed a similar strategy to “help us withstand the wave," said one former DCCC official, but “those Republican candidates are now members of Congress.” Democrats ultimately lost 63 seats in 2010 in President Barack Obama’s first midterm cycle.

“We went through every business record and tax record and video and client list that they’ve ever been involved in and, in the end, those weren’t the issues that were top of mind to voters,” the official continued, granted anonymity to discuss internal party strategy. “You win elections by meeting voters where they are, not by trying to convince them something else matters that’s not relevant to their life."

Democrats pointed to Tennessee Rep. Scott DesJarlais, who overcame allegations that his former wife accused him of harassment, intimidation and physical abuse during their divorce, as The Times Free-Press reported in September 2010. DesJarlais, then a first-time candidate, denied the allegations and defeated Democratic Rep. Lincoln Davis by 18 points.

Harrison, who led the NRCC during the 2010 cycle, said that Democrats "waited until too late in the race" to go after Republicans’ personal traits, "which allowed us to grow."

But another Republican consultant put it more bluntly: "In a wave election, even bozos can get elected. It’s often just about grabbing a surfboard."



CORRECTION: A previous version of this article misstated Wisconsin Democrat Randy Bryce's arrest record. He has been arrested once for driving under the influence.