Across the country, Republicans are flooding the airwaves with bleak warnings — trying to link their opponents to murderers, child abusers and opioid overdoses. Democrats are countering that their rivals would imprison women who seek abortions.
The campaign's closing message is bleak, with Republicans lobbing broader attacks on their rivals on top of outmoded "defund the police" ads against vulnerable incumbents.
The picture is a campaign closing on a two-front battle over crime that’s designed to rattle independents and suburban women whose votes could tip battleground races. Democrats dismiss the GOP ads as a scare tactic, and their swing-seat members often have to craft their own rebuttals on a policing issue that’s already ended with votes to “fund the police,” as President Joe Biden himself put it.
“People pay their taxes. They expect to be safe,” the Republican added in an interview, noting that her progressive Democratic opponent Jamie McLeod-Skinner has previously aligned with groups that pushed to cut police funding after national unrest over racial justice in 2020. “My opponent marching in those movements sends a very different message.”