Sept. 24, 2024, 4:39 p.m.
With fewer than 50 days until the election, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is launching its opening salvo as it seeks to claw back into the majority.
The committee released a new barrage of TV ads for the general election across the country on Tuesday, focusing on its top issue: abortion. The ad buy, bought on a week-to-week basis, totals seven figures and is part of the committee’s previously announced $55 million initial reservations.
The ads will air in Arizona, California, Iowa, Michigan, New Mexico, and Ohio. The messages vary slightly from district to district, and there are Spanish-language ads in New Mexico and California. The ads will target races in GOP-held districts such as California’s 22nd District and Iowa’s 1st District, as well as Democratic-held seats in Michigan's 7th District, New Mexico’s 2nd District, and North Carolina’s 1st District.
Abortion rights has been Democrats' most potent line of messaging against Republicans since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Later that year, in the midterm elections, Democrats staved off what was expected to be a red wave, in no small part due to effective messaging on abortion access.
“Extreme House Republicans have stopped at nothing to ban abortion nationwide, just to turn around and lie to voters about their antiabortion, anti-freedom records,” DCCC spokesperson Nebeyatt Betre told National Journal in a statement. “The DCCC is committed to ensuring that voters know the truth about what House Republicans actually stand for: Restricting women’s fundamental reproductive rights nationwide.”
This cycle, the message has hardly changed. Though Republicans are expressing confidence that the election will be a referendum on immigration, the economy, and crime, Democrats say their message on abortion will hold. Internal Democratic polling from earlier this year found that across 67 competitive congressional districts, more than a third of voters would not vote for a candidate if they disagreed with them on abortion rights. The DCCC's ads are targeting those voters.
The spot targeting Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks in Iowa features a nurse who says the congresswoman “supported banning abortion nationwide” and that “nurses who provide life-saving care could go to jail.”
The message may be particularly poignant in Iowa, where the Republican-led Legislature this year passed a bill that bans abortion at six weeks.
In another ad, in North Carolina, the DCCC goes after Republican Laurie Buckhout, who’s challenging Rep. Don Davis in one of the most hotly contested seats this cycle. The video features a North Carolinian who says “Buckhout would allow state governments to track pregnant women.” It concludes by showing pictures of Buckhout posing with Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the embattled Republican gubernatorial nominee.
Democrats are also once again targeting Republican Rep. David Valadao of California, who has been a thorn in the committee’s side for multiple cycles. The DCCC’s first ad foray into Bakersfield this cycle says that Valadao “co-sponsored a national abortion ban,” and features a clip of Valadao saying he’s “pro-life" and that "I signed on to the bill,” referring to the Life at Conception Act.
The ads certainly don’t lack nuance. The fall of Roe v. Wade has given Democrats an arsenal of methods to hit Republicans on abortion. That includes featuring doctors and nurses speaking about abortion access or highlighting past statements made by candidates in competitive districts.
The potency of abortion rights over the last two cycles has also allowed Democrats to highlight former state legislators’ past votes for antiabortion measures, which would have been ineffectual under Roe v. Wade. The committee’s spots in Michigan’s 7th and Ohio’s 9th, two Democratic-held seats critical to the House majority, call out the antiabortion bills Republican nominees advanced while serving in state government.
Republicans, to a greater extent this cycle, have tried to avoid treading water when it comes to abortion access. Some Republicans, like Reps. Juan Ciscomani of Arizona and Marc Molinaro of New York, went direct-to-camera to address their opposition to a national abortion ban and support for in-vitro fertilization.
One of the DCCC’s new ads clips Ciscomani’s spot and says he’s voted for national abortion restrictions.
