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Vast majority of Senate campaign ads steer clear of linking Biden or Trump to their opponents

To Senate Republicans, Joe Biden isn't much of a bogeyman.

Posted Updated

By
Alex Rogers
and
Manu Raju, CNN
CNN — To Senate Republicans, Joe Biden isn't much of a bogeyman.

While in several recent election cycles down-ticket candidates have been quick to link their foes to their party's presidential nominee, this time around, that has hardly been the case. The former vice president has not played a starring role in Republican attack ads, while Senate Democrats have mostly avoided mentioning President Donald Trump, particularly in states he carried in 2016 where Democrats are battling to pick up Senate seats.

From Labor Day through Sunday, 95% of broadcast television spots in competitive Senate races were neither anti-Trump nor anti-Biden, according to a CNN review of data provided by Kantar's Campaign Media Analysis Group.

Republicans have cut more television spots tying their Senate Democratic opponents to tried-and-true bugaboos like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, or left-wing leaders like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, than Biden.

From September 7 through September 27, political groups ran 397 spots in 15 competitive Senate races across the country. They were played 309,000 times and cost an estimated $188 million to air. But even as the Senate campaigns entered the final stage of their races, the groups ran only 21 spots with an anti-Trump or anti-Biden message, according to CMAG, about 5% of the total.

In those 20 September days, right-wing groups did not air anti-Biden ads in 11 of the 15 races, and left-wing groups did not air anti-Trump ads in 10 races.

Republican leaders say it points to an effort to make the focus about the candidates themselves, allowing them to distance themselves from the latest White House controversy and the bitterly fought presidential race.

"I think in a lot of our races, it's going to be decided on the quality of the candidates and their message -- as long as they have the resources to get the message out," said South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the No. 2 Republican in the chamber.

The presidential candidates are at this stage extremely well-known. Political groups have spent or reserved over $1.2 billion to advertise in the contest for the White House, according to CMAG.

But the review also underscores that Senate Republicans view Biden as a bad boogeyman, and that Senate Democratic candidates are still seeking to win over Trump supporters, even though their races are more closely aligned with the top of the ticket than ever before. In 2016, no state split their vote for Senate and President for the first time in US history, the culmination of decades of increasing partisanship and polarization.

Senate Democratic candidates have largely refrained from using Trump in their ads, unless they enjoy the advantage of campaigning in blue states like Colorado and Maine. The Democrats seem well aware that their path to flipping the Senate runs through Trump-won states.

Here are five other takeaways from CNN's review:

Only 14 of the 397 spots were explicitly anti-Trump. Liberal groups in Maine and Colorado aired 10 of them, attempting to tie Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Cory Gardner with the top of the ticket in two blue states. The Senate Majority PAC, the biggest liberal Super PAC in Senate races, aired one spot in Arizona in Spanish, and MeidasTouch aired another in Iowa, Sen. Joni Ernst's "blind loyalty to Trump led Iowa into catastrophe." Democratic candidate Jaime Harrison and the Lincoln Project aired the remaining two spots in South Carolina, comparing what Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said during the 2016 presidential campaign -- calling Trump a "race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot" -- with what he said since Trump was elected. There were only seven spots hitting Biden, half the number attacking Trump. Five of the spots aired in red states -- Kansas, Montana and Kentucky -- while two of them aired in North Carolina, where Sen. Thom Tillis is trying to tie Democratic candidate Cal Cunningham to more prominent Democrats. A narrator in a Tillis spot alleges that Cunningham and Biden will raise taxes, warning "Hold onto your wallet."More than either presidential candidate, Pelosi showed up in 29 spots in ads trying to bring down Senate Democratic candidates, including eight spots in Montana, five in Alaska, one in Alabama, two in Arizona, one in Colorado, two in Iowa, one in Kansas, four in Kentucky, two in North Carolina, two in Maine (from third-party candidate Max Linn's campaign), and one in South Carolina. It's not a surprise that Pelosi comes up in so many ads; she has led the House Democrats since 2003. But both Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Independent who Biden beat in the presidential primaries, and first-term Rep. Ocasio-Cortez are negatively featured in more spots than the former vice president. Sanders is in 16 spots, and Ocasio-Cortez is featured in 10. One spot from Alaska Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan's campaign features images of Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez and Pelosi, in which he says he's "defending Alaska from socialist politicians and their job-killing Green New Deal." (Al Gross, Sullivan's Independent opponent, has said he opposes that proposal addressing climate change.)There were 17 spots deemed pro-Trump, including six in the Georgia race, where Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler and GOP Rep. Doug Collins are trying to prove their loyalty in a special election with multiple candidates on the ballot. One spot in Kansas is a testimonial from retired state Rep. Larry Hibbard, who says that he is for Trump and Democratic Senate candidate Barbara Bollier over GOP Rep. Roger Marshall. Another pro-Trump spot comes from Gardner's campaign in Colorado, arguing that he has effectively served the state both under Trump and former President Barack Obama. The other pro-Trump spots aired in red states like Kentucky, Montana, South Carolina and Alabama. Former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville says in one spot that he's "going to help President Trump save our great country," while Democratic Sen. Doug Jones voted to remove Trump from office during the impeachment trial.

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