Exclusive: Immigration dominates GOP candidates' TV ads in House contests across the country

Show Caption Hide Caption Republican House candidates tout hardline immigration stances According to campaign ad data from Kantar Media, Republican House candidates for 2018 are openly flaunting hardline stances on immigration policy. Deirdre Shesgreen reports.

WASHINGTON – House Republican candidates are blanketing the airwaves with TV ads embracing a hard line on immigration — a dramatic shift from the midterm elections in 2014, according to a USA TODAY analysis of data from Kantar Media.

Republicans have aired more than 14,000 campaign ads touting a tough Trump-style immigration platform this year. The barrage underscores why House GOP leaders worry that passing a legislative fix for undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children, referred to as DREAMers, would put GOP candidates at risk heading into the fall election.

“I’ll end sanctuary cities to stop illegals from taking our jobs … and use conservative grit to build the darn wall,” Troy Balderson, a GOP state senator running for Congress in Ohio, promises in one such ad.

Democrats bombard voters with ads that promise to protect Obamacare, shore up Social Security and expand Medicare, according to the data from Kantar’s Campaign Media Analysis Group (CMAG).

“We need Medicare for all, to make absolutely certain that what happened to my family never happens to yours,” California Democrat Paul Kerr says in a TV spot that recounts how his family was financially devastated by medical bills after his mother was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., championed ta single-payer universal health care system in the 2016 election.

The competing messages demonstrate how far apart the two parties are. They’re not just talking about issues differently; they’re touting completely different issues to motivate activists and win hotly contested primaries.

“It sometimes feels like the two parties are talking to two different countries,” said Kyle Kondik, a political analyst with the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.

In many ways, they are, especially in primaries, Kondik said. He noted that Republicans appeal to a whiter, older, more rural electorate, while Democrats court a more diverse, younger, urban constituency.

The GOP focus on immigration is particularly striking, given that it was not among the top 10 issues Republicans spent their ad dollars on at this point in the 2014 midterms. In that cycle, GOP contenders attacked President Obama, bashing the Affordable Care Act and promising to rein in government spending.

Now, immigration ranks second only to pro-Trump spots in GOP campaigns across the country — and just by a smidgen.

“Just about every survey I’ve seen shows that among Republican primary voters, immigration is one of the most important issues, if not the most important,” said Brian Murray, a GOP consultant based in Arizona.

Murray was a top adviser to Rep. Debbie Lesko in her successful bid to win the special election in April for Arizona’s 8th Congressional District.

While other GOP candidates opened with biographical spots, “our first ad during the primary was all about immigration,” Murray said. Lesko kept the focus on immigration through the general election, where she faced an unusually stiff challenge from Democrat Hiral Tipirneni in a GOP-friendly district.

Murray said he’s not surprised that Republicans in non-border states are embracing a similar strategy, particularly after Trump catapulted immigration into the national spotlight during his 2016 presidential campaign.

“I don’t see immigration going away as an issue” for Republicans, Murray said.

In Washington, House GOP leaders would like to make the immigration issue fade away. It’s tearing the GOP conference apart — and jeopardizing House Speaker Paul Ryan’s grip on power.

Moderate Republicans push legislation that would grant legal status to the DREAMers. During a closed-door meeting, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who hopes to succeed Ryan in the next Congress, warned centrist rebels that their effort could demoralize the Republican base and help Democrats win a House majority in the 2018 elections.

Conservatives counterpunched, pressuring Ryan to call up legislation that would slash legal immigration and authorize construction of Trump’s proposed border wall. Ryan is trying to navigate a middle course, but he will retire at the end of this year and has limited leverage as a result.

Some strategists warned that the GOP’s full-throated embrace of Trump’s anti-immigration positions in primaries could come back to haunt them in the fall.

“Here’s the problem,” said Frank Luntz, a longtime Republican consultant. “It puts them in a position that the general public will not agree with.”

The majority of Americans, 74%, support granting permanent legal status to the DREAMers, and 60% oppose expanding the wall along the U.S. border with Mexico, according to a Pew Research Center poll in January.

Luntz said his own polls show that even many Republican voters support protecting the DREAMers. “If it looks like it’s Republicans holding up an agreement (in Congress), they’ll get hurt on Election Day,” he said.

GOP strategists said Democrats' embrace of extreme positions will hurt them in the general election.

“I'll fight Trump on climate change, oppose his health care plan and protect women's health care choices,” Grant Kier, a Democrat running for Montana’s only House seat, promises in a TV spot. Kier competes against several other Democrats in the state’s primary June 5, including a candidate who embraced gun control and another who supports Medicare for all.

Those positions are "woefully out of touch with Montana values," said Courtney Alexander, a spokeswoman for the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC affiliated with House Republicans. "This is representative of what the Democratic Party is facing across the country — Bernie-lite candidates who continue to move to the left in crowded Democratic primaries.”

Democratic candidates have focused overwhelmingly on health in their advertising, running more than 26,000 ads on the subject. Of those, more than 8,500 Democratic spots promise to protect or expand Medicare, the Kantar data show.

The two parties agree on one thing about the competing primary ads: "That shows you that the ... grass-roots wings of either party couldn’t be more divergent on the issues that are motivating them," Hunt said.

Contributing: Fredreka Schouten