Episode 22: Law professor explains how this election could flip Congress and stress voters

Well, I think where we are is in competitive races.

The last several statewide Ohio elections have not been very close.

The Republicans had a comfortable margin.

This year, We don't know how those races will turn out, but they all look to be a lot closer than they have been in recent years.

And so when you've got a close election, everybody has an incentive to go all in because they don't want to give up any votes that they might get.

And they think that if they have hard hitting ads, that that will somehow help them.

And it's not just one.

I mean, we're talking about the governor, we're talking about a United States Senate seat.

I know here in Northeast Ohio, we're talking about two congressional races too.

Does that change the ball again

too? No, that's part of it.

And it's not just the governor and senator.

All of the statewide executive offices are up this year and we don't have any incumbents in those positions because the folks who hold those positions now are term limited out.

So everybody has every reason to be pulling out all the stops because they're not really in a position to run on their record in that position.

These campaigns must really feel that these advertisements work.

I think that's right, but we also need to think about what does work mean.

Work might mean that you are persuading undecided voters.

That's ultimately what it should mean to the campaigns.

Well, maybe.

Okay.

But some of the ads that we see probably aren't likely to persuade undecided voters.

they might be serving different functions.

One is to get more enthusiasm among that side's base to motivate those folks to vote by making the opponent seem like the devil incarnate.

The other possibility is that they're trying to discourage some weak supporters of the other side's candidate from voting by raising doubts so that in a close election, if somebody doesn't vote for an office, that's half a vote for the other side.

So these ads could be designed for any of these purposes, but When you've got a close election and you're trying to kind of thread the needle, you may very well decide that really over the top ads will accomplish at least one of those goals, even if it doesn't elevate the level of public discourse.