Republicans Turn On Trump In Brutal New Midterm Ads

I really like it when a nice guy candid up shows a willingness to punch the opponent in the fucking mouth. It connects corruption to actual consequences for people 10 out of 10, no notes. Welcome to Political Extras React, where you break down political ads and media, explain what the people behind them are trying to accomplish and decide whether or not they did a good job. I'm Dan Fyfer, form a communication structure with Barack Obama and co-hosts of Potsade America. And joining me today is noted Democratic strategist and friend of the pot, Dissu Demisee. Dissu, how are you? I'm good. I'm good at Democratic strategist. You're a very well-known, very successful Democratic strategist. When I say noted, it's sort of like me putting the old school blue checkmark by you, considering the number of people who are ponding themselves off as Democratic strategist, social media and cable these days. I refuse to, I still haven't, a suckered or fallen prey to purchasing that blue checkmark in the new era of Twitter. I hate to admit this, but I got mine. But thank you for giving me the unofficial. I got mine for Fyfer. So, all right, all right, so I want to start with an ad that's gotten a ton of attention. We talked about on Potsade America on Friday, but I want your take as someone who's in the field working on races. This is an ad from Florida, Congressman woman Maria Elvira Salazar, that went up last week. It's a president. Some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far. In July, 50% of the 50,000 people that were detained had no criminal record. Be careful what your advisors are telling you about immigration policy. And the same Hispanics who help you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today. You can be for immigration, what Lincoln was for slavery and Reagan was for communism. I'm not talking about giving them amnesty. I'm talking about giving them a dignified life in this promised land. I am Maria Elvira Salazar and I approve this message. Okay, two very, very important facts for our viewers who may not be familiar with every member of Congress. Salazar is a Republican and she's a Republican from a district that Trump won by about 15 points. What does this ad tell you about how Republicans are seeing the map? Yeah, I think it is a canary in the coal mine for sure about how bad things are for Trump. And particularly how bad they are with Latino voters. This is a district in southern Florida that is extra, I think, majority, super majority, perhaps even Latino, Miami-Dade County. And like you said, a place that Trump won by double digits and to have the local Republican member of Congress come out and that ad was in front of the White House, literally speak directly to a president of your own party saying you're screwing up is part and parcel of what's kind of happening I think across America right now within the Republican Party that folks see that Trump is an anchor and they're the ones in danger who are on the ballot now in a couple weeks. Yeah. I think you hit on a couple important points. It was like we know that people who are within a plus seven, plus eight, plus nine, plus ten, depending on what poll you look at, generic ballot events for Democrats. We know that folks in districts that Trump won by five, six, seven points, those are races that are well within our reach. When you have someone who feels compelled to break from the president in such a public way, just literally just stick their thumb in his eye in a Republican, in a Trump plus 15 district, that is a gigantic warning sign, and it speaks to the other thing, which is Trump is losing his chunk of his 2024 voters, either voting for Democrats or they're staying home, but he's losing them at the greatest rate with Latinos. Yeah, Latinos and young people, I think, and of course, a lot of young people are Latino, but yeah, it's, you know, and I saw in Axios, I think yesterday, some GOP polling that was leaked that suggests that Latino voters are supportive, generally speaking, of more restrictive immigration, certainly Florida, Latinos, you know, most of them, or I should say most, a significant portion of them are Cuban Americans in Southern Florida, but the way that Trump is doing it, which is what the Congresswoman says and her ad is, I think, a 28% support versus a majority support for sort of generic strict immigration policy. And, you know, I think, honestly, I think it's a pretty good ad, obviously, as a Democrat, who sort of thinks that Trump has been disgusting in his immigration policy, I agree with it, but I think from a political perspective, it's a very effective way to, I mean, to split from a popular president, and you don't see Republicans doing this very much, being sort of that explicit about how bad Trump is performing on any policy issue, let alone immigration. There had been this question about whether, you know, Florida was breaking differently because of the different makeup of Latino voters in Florida, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Salvadorans, compared to other, like, states like Texas were, or have a Mexican background, and there had been this poll, I think it was a Yuga of Unitos Polar or something, earlier this year, which looked at Latino voters by state, and Florida was where those state where Trump had the highest approval among, you know, still not a great one, but dramatically better than Texas, Arizona, California, that's part of the country. And if you have someone in a district with a large Cuban population, that should be very concerning for Republicans. Yeah. And I think what we are seeing, you know, not to beat a dead horse is what I think those of us who are Democrats and lived through Trump won, and, you know, have common sense know, which is that Trump doesn't make his own distinctions here, right? And I understand why a voter might have thought differently, or at least I can understand why that might have been the case. But I think if you're a Cuban or a Venezuelan or a Salvadorian in South Florida, you're now, like, wait a second. I thought this was going to be them, you know, I can't believe the leverage reading my face. But, you know, I don't want to miss that, like, great, come back to our side, and hopefully this ad, honestly, as a Democrat, again, doesn't cause our candidate down there to lose some of those voters to the incumbent Congresswoman. I think there's an open question of as to whether this ad will work. I think it's a, as a singular piece of content. It is a, it's a great way to break with the president in a, in an attention grabbing way. It'll get attached to your first one, doing it your in front of the White House, not just in a, you know, some sort of rented office somewhere, like a lot of campaign ads. Right. There is the question here of, there is a lot of footage of Salazar making, not just voting for, but making the case for the $700 billion for ICE that pays for the thing she's now to cry. She should have known better as I think, right, which is, which is why I hope, like I said, an effective piece of content like this doesn't actually work because there is a rejoinder, which is you should have known better. You're the one you helped enable this and we, we elect you to, to know better. Exactly. We'll see. If you liked this video, I would highly encourage you to sign up for my newsletter. The message box is the best way, in my very biased opinion, to stay abreast of what's happening in the midterms. I am giving you analysis of the races. I'm breaking down the polls. It help you separate the signal from the noise and understand what really matters, what you should get your hopes up about, what you should be worried about. If you sign up today and we put the link in the description, you get 20% off. I recommend it. I think you'll really enjoy it. Thanks so much. The Pots of America breaking news is brought to you by Zipper Cruder, with everyday interactions becoming increasingly impersonal. Someone going just one extra step can be huge, like when my doctor takes the time to call me with test results instead of sending them electronically. They came back positive for gay. It makes me feel like a human being again. If you're hiring, great candidates can also go the extra step and tell you why they're interested in your job on Zipper Cruder as a way to stand out from others in the pool. And Zipper Cruder has a new feature showing you the most interested qualified candidates first. So you can meet the right people faster. Zipper Cruder's powerful matching technology finds qualified candidates quickly. Candidates can tell you in their own words why they're interested in your job. 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I mean, 10 out of 10, no, no, this is what I would say, you know, that is kind of the archetype, I think, of how you connect an unpopular war with the most important issue in this midterm, which is the cost of living, and the reality that Trump and Mike Rogers are one and the same when it comes to both of those issues. So I think it's a great spot, it is, like I said, it's pretty standard. I would assume there will be a lot of these type of spots running in other states from when Senate, which is, you know, the SMP independent expenditure side doing the dirty work of going after and taking down the Republican, and it's a great ad. Yeah, I mean, ad is great. It's interesting. Like, I track to the best of my ability as many ads as possible, and I've been shocked by how few there ads have been about, specifically the Iran war. There are a lot of ads about cost, a lot of ads about high gas prices, but very few that have been this direct about the war, the candidates support for the war, the connection between the war and gas prices, and like, I agree with you that I, you know, there is sometimes a cookie cutter element to these, the super PAC ads, where they're just, there's going to be a version of this. about Mike Watley, there's gonna be a version of this about Susan Collins, you know, you can go down the line, you'll see it, but this is one of the first ones. And I think it's particularly, the other interesting part here, is that some of the states we're gonna play, there is a question, you know, whether it's Ohio, Iowa, Alaska, Texas, where the Trump thing is a little bit of a closer call, because these are Trump plus 11, Trump plus 13 states, is, I don't know the answer to this, but is the right thing to do to make it a special about Trump, but in Michigan, essentially a 50/50 state, it is like one of the best arguments, I think the same, you can run this exactly at in Maine too, is like, it is just absolutely critical that you tie Rogers to a very unpopular president, and that a vote for Rogers is a vote for Trump, 'cause you need people who are pissed at Trump, who may even have some questions about Abdul, to understand that the best way to express their anger at Trump is through a vote against Rogers or for Abdul, however you don't get it. I completely agree, and you know, in Iowa and Alaska, in any state that Trump won, right, including Michigan, but that was one of the closest, but certainly those other states, the path to victory for the Democrats is through people who voted for Trump in large numbers, like majority, and while Trump is underwater everywhere now, he's underwater less in states that are redder, obviously, right? So it's a really good point that you're probably gonna see this ad with less Trump in those states, and more around more in costs, without that all in on Trump at the end, versus in a state like Maine, I would be, honestly, kind of shocked if they don't basically do the same thing. - Say man had it made at some point with maybe more Trump because it's a bluer state. - And you could do it, you could also do it in North Carolina as they Trump won by a little bit more than Michigan, but still a little bit closer. You could obviously do it in Georgia too. If we even see, if we have to spend any money there, say maybe with North Carolina, there are some questions about whether wealth has been money there either, would it? - That is a high-class problem, I'll tell you. - I mean, God bless those guys at S&P 'cause I bet they had one thought a year and a half ago about where they were gonna have to be spending their money that would have included most of it going in Georgia in North Carolina, and now we're playing on an away game in places like Kansas and Iowa, you know? - They probably also might have taken New Hampshire and Michigan off their list a year ago too. - So they might be buying some very expensive Boston TV, if we don't see some better numbers out of that today. - All right, the last ad we're gonna look at is an attack ad from James Salarico about Kempakston. - I'm James Salarico, and I approve this message. - This is Adam Hoffman, leaving jail after he admitted to sexually abusing a child. He should have spent his life in prison. Instead, Attorney General Ken Paxton offered him one day in jail. See Hoffman's lawyer represented one of Paxton's biggest donors and Epstein's style sweetheart deal for a well-connected child predator, one day in jail. Kempakston's corruption endangers our kids. We don't need any more pedophile protectors in Washington. - This one, of course, went very viral online Democratic activists, loved it. I tweeted about it, many people tweeted about it. What did you think of the ad and how effective it might be with actual voters, not just online nerds like myself? - Yeah, I was gonna say, I think it was probably doubly intended to not unlike the Salazar ad or media, but the thing that I think that's the most interesting about this, and this is in general something that a good friend, Jesse Ferguson has been harping on over the last couple months, is it connects corruption to actual consequences for people. And I think that's probably the most important thing, like as a lesson for the rest of the world of Democrats over the course of the next seven weeks, is everybody thinks all politicians are corrupt. Certainly the voters, swing voters in general elections, I think kind of think everybody is corrupt. The question isn't, is he corrupt? It is, how is that gonna hurt me? And you know, Trump, if you think back to 2016, this was like one of his big arguments. He was like, I'm sure I'm corrupt, but so are the Clintons, and I'm actually the one who knows how to fix it. All of that is to say, corruption has consequences. And what are the consequences for Texans? It is putting a child predator on the streets and endangering our kids, as it says. And so I think why it is effective is not just because it's a hard hitting negative ad, but because it connects an issue that is maybe the second most important issue in this election, which is corruption within our government to real consequences for real people that they can tangibly feel. They do not want child predators on the streets. Yeah, I have a couple of different thoughts about the sand. One, when I first saw it, I loved it. And I really like it when a campaign, particularly a campaign with a really nice guy candidate like James Celerigo, shows a willingness to punch the opponent in the fucking mouth. Because some candidates will not do that. They are resistant to playing as tough as Republicans going to play. So in the fact that it's from-- this is not from Senate Majority Pack. This is not from some other super pack. This is from-- Celerigo's got to put his name at the end and say approve by James Celerigo when he does that. And I think that is a very positive sign for what he will do to win the race. That is maybe that's a cynical take, but I think that is the reality of politics. So I like that. I agree with you 100% that the thing about corruption is you have to make it matter to people. And this is what has made-- this has been the efficacy of Ossoff's message over the last several months as he finds a way to connect it. There are some questions about that. One is, there's been this navigator research polling that's been out recently. It shows that now people think corruption was one of the leading causes of higher costs. Yes. And so this is what Ossoff has done. It's he's connecting all the corruption in Washington to the higher cost you're paying. This is a different move. It's not necessarily a bad move because, you know, Kenpacston, everyone knows Kenpacston's corrupt. And so like finding this very visceral, evocative way to do it. And they've done a bunch of different ads. We watched in a different previous episode of this, the one where Celerigo, he has the guy who's penned Kenpacston's stole, his $1,000 pen. Oh, yeah. Come on and tell the story about it. And that's like a different thing. There's two ends of the corruption. His corruption is so bad that he'll let child predators on the street. It's also so fucking regular and petty that I'll just steal a dude's pen because he likes it. It's sticky. Yeah. It's sticky. People will remember like Mitt Romney and the dog. Yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. And it also shows that like in some ways, Celerigo is running the democratic version of the strategy Republicans are trying to run in all the other states, which is, they're probably trying to make the Democrats so unacceptable that they will not cross the line of vote for him. This is all the trans ads in Ohio about Sharon Brown. It's all the stuff that Susan Collins has said she's not going to bring up that is brought up about Troy Jackson. It's all that stuff in what Celerigo's doing. His job is to make Paxton unacceptable. Completely and totally unacceptable. That it's just that you're either going to vote for James Celerigo or you're going to stay home if you're one of the many Texans who does not like Donald Trump. And I think to our earlier conversation, this is one of those states where the path to victory is through Republican voters. Like it has to be its Texas and independent voters. But like people who certainly people who voted for Trump in large numbers. And so this is why we have a chance in Texas, right? Like Paxton is, you need everything to go right, but you certainly need an opponent for whom it will be hard for Republican voters to vote. And Paxton already had that because he'd been impeached by a Republican legislature. All right, like we already knew that he was somewhat unpalable to his own party. But these are ads that I think we are again, we're not the audience for these ads by any stretch. We're like the opposite of the audience. This is Republican voters, right leaning conservative voters for whom you're trying to make Paxton unacceptable. And I don't know if those people are going to vote for, ever going to vote for Celerigo. But staying home gets you, gets you something too. That's a point or staying home is a point. Say you're a point. Yeah, it's one point in your favor for, you know, I can't, or showing up to vote and voting for some, you know, your, your Congress person, and then getting to the Senate on the ballot and being like, you know what, I just can't do it. That's really fascinating to see if there is an under vote on Texas Senate. Like how many more votes do, you know, maybe Abbott or other statewide elected, elected Republicans get that, or even total, just total vote, right? Like how many of you were votes are cast because there are people who will vote for everyone else, but not vote for Paxton. And I think there will probably be regional differences there too, right? I wonder in West Texas, which is obviously very conservative, versus like suburban places that are purple, but have a lot of Republicans because of numbers in them, is it going to be different? Like are you going to have, is it going to be the suburban Republicans who under vote the Senate race? Is it going to be the really conservative rural Republicans? Is it going to be all of them? I think at some level to win in Texas, you got to, you got to play the whole game. And this is where, you know, it's hard for Celerigo. He's got to do everything. He's got to maximize the black vote. He's got to swing those Latinos in the RGB. And he's got to make sure that these Republicans are just, just can't bear pulling the lever for Paxton. But it seems like we're on a path to potentially do all that. Yeah, and to the last point on this, it speaks to Mike Celerigo's running this ad. And what makes, you know, why this is still hard, even with all the various advantages we might have, is, I look at analysis of a bunch of the polls that Celerigo had ahead. And in them, the 90% of the undecided voters were Trump voters. Now, I'd love to know where they-- and then very likely may be, Trump voters who disapprove of him now, which is an audience that he has a real shot with. But that's the last group of people he's got to get to get over the top. And I will say to people watching and listening to this, that is basically true, I think, across the board on the Senate map. It is, you know, getting to 48 from 48 to 51 is a battle for people who voted for Trump in 2024, who I'm not sure how they feel about him, but I think we can pretty reasonably guess that they're less bullish on him today than they were in November of 2024. And getting that last mile is what you're going to see most of these campaigns advertising to strategizing around for the last 40 something days of the campaign. All right. Did he assume this was fun? Always great to talk to you. Always. And we'll keep our eye on the ads going forward. Sounds good. [Music]