Vulnerable Senate Democrats in the so-called Blue Wall states have been distancing themselves from the Biden-Harris administration and going so far as to embrace the policies of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in the waning days of their reelection campaigns.
Democrat Sens. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, and Rep. Elissa Slotkin, who’s running for the open Senate seat in Michigan, have appealed to Trump voters while turning their backs on the Democrat presidential nominee in the hopes of getting reelected, The Hill reported Tuesday.
Casey launched an ad last week embracing Trump’s tariffs and saying he “bucked Biden to protect fracking.” Baldwin launched an ad praising Trump for signing her “Made in America” bill.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) on Monday rebuked the senators for their hypocrisy.
“These Senate Democrats all voted to impeach President Trump twice, so it is surprising that they are now running ads praising his work as President. Disingenuousness aside, these are the type of ads you run if you think your nominee for president is going to lose,” NRSC communications director Mike Berg said.
Slotkin began in August, running an ad touting Trump signing her law on drug prices, Axios reported.
Perhaps the two most vulnerable Democrat incumbent senators, Jon Tester in Montana and Sherrod Brown in Ohio, have done the same. Tester appealed to “lifelong Republicans” in an ad while Brown earlier this year touted a bill of his Trump signed to stop drugs at the border, according to Axios.
Polling in the three Blue Wall states shows Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris neck and neck. But in Pennsylvania, Casey’s ad set out to frame himself as an independent.
“There’s no party affiliation in Casey ads. I don’t recall seeing any that say ‘Democrat’ or anything like that. He’s running as an incumbent on his own record,” Berwood Yost, director of the Center for Public Opinion Research at Franklin & Marshall College told The Hill. “He’s trying to distance himself a little bit from an administration that is viewed negatively by the most part. He doesn’t want to be tied to that either through Biden or Harris,” he said.
