Caravans and Kavanaugh: NC campaign ads hit on national hot-buttons. Will they work?

Central American migrants. Billionaire George Soros. Brett Kavanaugh.

Those are images from attack ads not in North Carolina’s congressional races but in contests for the state legislature.

Candidates, particularly Republicans, have turned increasingly to hot-button national issues in the days before next week’s mid-term election.

“In this environment our politics is becoming increasing nationalized,” said Jonathan Kappler, who tracks legislative races for the Free Enterprise Foundation. “So the themes that candidates are running on . . . are pretty consistent across the country and up and down the ballot.”

With high stakes and big dollars, candidates appear to be spending more than ever for General Assembly seats. Democrats are trying to break the “super-majorities” that allow Republicans to override vetoes by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. Republicans hope they can preserve their majorities in the face of heavy Democratic spending.

Sen. Trudy Wade, a Greensboro Republican, is running an online ad that purports to show “a mob of illegals marching to our border.” The words “Mexicans, Haitians, Salvadorans” flash on the screen over crowds of people and headlines about illegal voting.

“Only you can stop the mob,” a narrator says, urging viewers to vote for the voter ID constitutional amendment and against her Democratic opponent, Michael Garrett of Guilford County.

Wade could not be reached. Garrett called it “a xenophobic ad” and “a last gasp of desperation.” Immigration is a federal, not a state issue, and the legislature has limited power over immigration-related policies.

Wade has spent nearly $300,000 on broadcast TV ads, according to figures compiled by WRAL. Garrett has spent $369,000.

Immigration is also the subject of ads the state GOP is using against Democratic Senate candidate J.D. Wooten of Guilford County. They say Wooten is a trial lawyer who “specializes in helping illegal aliens avoid deportation and stay in our country illegally.”

“I do nothing in immigration law, never have,” said Wooten, an intellectual property lawyer. “It is absolutely libelous.”

State GOP executive director Dallas Woodhouse said the party only sends ads “that we believe to be true,” though he offered no evidence of the claim.

“These elections by their nature are largely nationalized this year,” he said. “Are the Democrats in general going to pay a price for the caravan invading the country and for not building the wall? They don’t seem to be interested in stopping it.”

According to Politifact, the caravan includes about 7,000 people walking from southern Mexico toward the U.S. border. “Republicans are trying whip up hysteria with dog whistle attacks rather than explain to voters why they refused to expand health care access or give schools more resources,” said Democratic spokesman Robert Howard.

To be sure, many Republicans are running on ads closer to home such as jobs, tax cuts and regulatory reductions made by the GOP controlled General Assembly. Democrats are running ads touting their positions on issues like health care and education.

But the hardest-hitting ads deal with national issues.

GOP Rep. Bob Steinburg of Edenton authorized an online ad that features Soros, a major Democratic donor, and Kavanaugh, whose contentious hearing preceded his confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“George Soros and the radical left tried to destroy Brett Kavanaugh because they know courts have the power,” the ad says. “Their next target: North Carolina’s Supreme Court.... The Left wants to take down Justice Barbara Jackson.”

The ad asks voters to re-elect Republican Jackson and oppose Democrat Anita Earls, whom it calls “a dangerous and extreme social justice warrior.”

There’s no evidence Soros is involved in the N.C. race, and the Washington Post has debunked GOP claims that Soros has paid other protesters.

But Steinburg, who is running for the Senate, called Democrats “absolutely desperate.”

“They’ve been hijacked by the far left,” he said. “It’s extremely important for folks to know exactly what is happening in this (N.C. Supreme Court) race.“

Analysts say such ads are designed to energize GOP voters.

“Even though Kavanaugh and Soros have nothing to do with state races, Republicans are reaching into their bag of tricks to do anything to gin up turnout,” said David McLennan, a Meredith College political scientist. “Democrats are trying to make it about health care. Republicans are just trying to change the election narrative. And going for a hot-button issue like immigration is one of their strategies.”

Democrats say other GOP candidates are injecting racial messages into their ads. At least one candidate has advertised himself as “one of us,” similar to the tagline GOP Sen. Jesse Helms used in his 1972 campaign against Democrat Nick Galifinakis. And one state GOP official posted an image on Instagram of the word “Jobs” over a white hand and Republicans and the word “Mobs” over a black fist and Democrats.

“It’s dog whistles, it’s race baiting, it’s appealing to the lowest common denominator,” said Sen. Floyd McKissick Jr. of Durham.

Democratic consultant Thomas Mills said such ads are “all about the base.”

“It’s an acknowledgment that we don’t have any swing voters any more,” he said. “It’s no-holds-barred politics.”

Staffer Stephanie Bunao contributed.

This story was originally published October 30, 2018 at 5:01 PM.