The Most INSANE Midterm Ads We’ve Seen So Far

Episode Overview

• Host Dan Pfeiffer (co-host of Pod Save America) and guest Tim Miller (host of The Bulwark Podcast) analyze the strategic goals and effectiveness of recent political and government-funded television advertisements.
• The discussion opens with an evaluation of a taxpayer-funded U.S. government ad touting the military capture of Nicolás and Cilia Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela, examining why it was aired and how disillusioned former Trump voters react to it.
• The hosts then dissect cultural attack and response ads in the South Carolina Senate race between Lindsey Graham and Democratic pediatrician Dr. Annie Andrews, focusing on how Democrats are directly confronting anti-trans attacks.
• Finally, the episode explores a dark, aggressive ad run by the Democratic Senate Majority PAC in the Kansas Senate race accusing Republican Senator Roger Marshall of covering up the Jeffrey Epstein files, highlighting a broader strategy of suppressing MAGA turnout in red states.

Key Concepts

• Taxpayer-Funded "Audience of One" Advertising: The federal government ran an ad across multiple college football games—and heavily on MS News—stating it was "Paid for by the U.S. Government." The ad highlights a U.S. military apprehension mission in Caracas, Venezuela, ordered by the President in support of a Department of Justice request to bring indicted persons Nicolás and Cilia Maduro to justice, featuring clips of Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump, and Marco Rubio warning adversaries not to "play games with this president." Pfeiffer notes that as far as he can tell, taxpayers paid for the ad and it aired after Trump promised to pay for such ads himself, with Miller adding that "six figures" of taxpayer money has been put into the ad buy since that promise, despite Trump's team having a "ton of money" in their MAGA accounts after having "shaken down a lot of people for money" in corrupt, potentially illegal ways. Pfeiffer explains that airing these ads on MS News so Trump sees them is akin to campaign field teams placing yard signs along a candidate's drive home to appease a boss obsessed with yard signs.
• Backfire of "Strongman" Messaging During Economic and Foreign Policy Struggles: While Miller hedges that the Maduro ad "probably not" would move votes even in good times, Pfeiffer argues the strongman framing works even less well when the administration is "losing a different war [in Iran] that everyone hates and raised everyone's gas prices." Citing a Bulwark focus group conducted by Sarah Longwell in Florida among past Trump voters who now disapprove of him, Miller notes that participants were "disgusted" by another government-paid ad, viewing it as a distraction tactic rather than a strength.
• The Missing Half of Republican Anti-Trans Attacks: In South Carolina, an ad paid for by Security is Strength PAC attacks Democratic candidate Annie Andrews, claiming she supports puberty blockers, hormones, and surgeries for minors, supports males competing against female athletes, and fights for unrestricted abortion, ending with the tagline: "Annie Andrews is for they/them. Not for our values. Not for South Carolina." Pfeiffer notes Republicans are running versions of this across the country, particularly as a "really big issue in Ohio and Texas." Miller argues that in the 2024 presidential race, the second half of Trump's "Kamala is for they/them" ad ("Trump is for you") was more important than the first half, and current Republican ads lack that populist economic contrast.
• Direct Rebuttal vs. Traditional Pivot on Cultural Issues: In response to the PAC attack, Annie Andrews' campaign ran an ad where she states she is a pediatrician with "three [kids] of my own," looking directly into the camera to say, "I don't support biological men playing women's sports, and I don't support and haven't ever performed gender surgery for minors," before accusing Lindsey Graham ("Darlene Graham") of lying. This contrasts with Ohio, where Pfeiffer notes Republicans have been "hammering" Sherrod Brown with better versions of anti-trans ads, and Brown has responded with traditional ads that rebut the facts and pivot to the economy. Miller admits he is "really not sure" if Andrews' response is compelling to conservative undecideds.
• The Red-State Undecided Voter Pool and MAGA Suppression: Counterintuitively, undecided voters in red states are overwhelmingly past Trump voters rather than traditional moderates. Miller cites internal polling from South Carolina's 1st Congressional District (where Democrat Nancy Lacore was up by "2 or 3 points" in Nancy Mace's district) showing undecided voters are "like three-time Trump voters," with the remaining undecided pool being "like 91% Trump vote." Similarly, Pfeiffer cites data in Texas showing "about 9 in 10 of the undecided voters are Trump voters" who voted for him multiple times. Because Pfeiffer notes these voters "probably not" will vote for Democrats, the strategic goal is to get them to stay home or vote third-party so a Democrat can win with less than 50% of the vote.
• The Six-Year Value of Wave-Election Senate Seats: Miller notes that if a wave election allows red-state Democrats like Adam Hamilton in Kansas and Annie Andrews in South Carolina to win, Democrats would end up with "55, 56 Senate seats." Pfeiffer emphasizes that while House seats won in a wave year are often "rented" and handed back two years later (noting 2006 as an exception where Democrats kept and added to them in 2008), Senate seats last for six years, meaning 2026 winners will still be in office if a Democratic president takes office in 2029.
• Weaponizing the Epstein Files for Voter Suppression: In Kansas, where Democratic candidate Adam Hamilton is a "megachurch pastor" and a Libertarian candidate is also in the race, WinSenate / Senate Majority PAC ran an ad against Republican Senator Roger Marshall. Citing CQ Senate Roll Call Vote 512 from 9/10/25, the ad claims dozens of young girls were sexually trafficked, drugged, molested, and raped by Jeffrey Epstein, and that Marshall "helped cover it up" by voting to keep the Epstein files sealed, saying releasing the information was "not of much interest to me," and "used his office to help protect pedophiles." While Pfeiffer notes Marshall has a large opposition research file—including "arresting women who have $50 medical debts"—and cites a New York Times poll showing Hamilton would do better if his name ID increased because undecideds disproportionately favor Democrats on the generic ballot, the PAC is using a "cookie-cutter" Epstein ad across multiple states, including against Susan Collins in Maine. Miller and Pfeiffer hedge that they do not have the full "media mix" or internal data, speculating that the PAC's task is "MAGA suppression" to push disillusioned Republicans toward the Libertarian candidate or the couch, though Miller notes the Epstein attack makes more sense in Ohio against Jon Husted because Husted took money from Les Wexner and Epstein had a house in Ohio.
• Speaker Disclosures and Episode Sponsors: During the episode, Pfeiffer discloses that he personally donated money to Senate candidates Annie Andrews and Adam Hamilton, and promotes his paid Substack newsletter, Message Box, with a "20% off for a year" discount. Miller discloses an upcoming live event for The Bulwark in Columbia, South Carolina, featuring candidate Annie Andrews. Additionally, Pod Save America co-host Jon Favreau reads a sponsor ad for ZipRecruiter (ziprecruiter.com/CROOKED), claiming that "4 out of 5 employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day."

Quotes

• At 5:15 - "He's grabbing the best chapters from communist countries to apply here so everybody's distracted by this shit and he can do whatever he wants." - Tim Miller quoting a Florida focus group participant named Eddie (a former Trump voter who now disapproves of him) reacting with disgust to taxpayer-funded government ads.
• At 8:42 - "Nobody has a lower view of Republican voters than Republican ad consultants and politicians." - Tim Miller critiquing the repetitive, base-level cultural attacks deployed by Republican Super PACs in states like South Carolina.
• At 11:46 - "The other reason that the 'they/them' ad worked was because the argument is: Kamala was focused on all this other stuff other than the thing you cared about. And what they're doing is focusing on—all their ads are focusing on all the stuff that you don't care about instead of the thing you actually care about, which is the economy and cost of living." - Dan Pfeiffer explaining why Republican anti-trans ads are less effective when Republicans are in power and failing to address economic pain.

Takeaways

• Evaluate cultural attack ads by looking for the economic pivot: When analyzing or crafting political messaging around cultural wedge issues, check whether the ad connects the cultural attack to the viewer's personal economic well-being; without the "for you" economic contrast, "they/them" style attacks lose their persuasive power among swing voters worried about the cost of living.
• Tailor red-state campaign strategies toward defection and suppression rather than pure persuasion: In deep-red states where roughly 90% of undecided voters are disillusioned multi-time Trump voters who are unlikely to vote for a Democrat, campaigns and PACs should use populist wedges (like government corruption or the Epstein cover-up) to encourage those voters to stay home or vote for a third-party candidate, lowering the vote share needed to win.
• Neutralize bad-faith attacks directly using candidate biography: When facing aggressive cultural attacks in conservative districts, candidates can use their personal and professional credentials (such as a pediatrician speaking directly to camera in a doctor's coat) to forcefully state their exact position in plain language, neutralizing the attack before pivoting to the opponent's dishonesty.