Good 2020 ads

Amy McGrath is running for the Democratic nomination to take on long-time US Senator Mitch McConnell, who was first elected to the seat from Kentucky in 1984, 35 years ago. She has produced some very good ads as she ramps up her campaign to win the nomination, though the ads are clearly aimed mostly at the General Election. Here are two of them.

The ad up top is her latest, “10 Hour Bus Ride”. It’s about former coal miners with black lung disease who road on a bus for ten hours to meet with Mitch McConnell, who only gave them one minute of his time. In so doing, it shows that the current Senator has ignored coal miners, an important constituency in the commonwealth. The ad does a good job underscoring the consequences of McConnell ignoring key constituencies, but it’s also good for letting ordinary people do the talking, telling their story and why it matters to them that McConnell ignores them.

The other ad, below, is called “The Letter” and focuses on the essence of democracy, serving the people. It’s theme is summed up in the tagline at the end: “Defeat Mitch. Defend Democracy.”



Both ads are good, but the strategy is also good: Get Democratic voters to see Amy McGrath as the challenger to McConnell. While the effort may be a long shot, she probably has the best chance of any Democrat.

Talking about this race in early July, Geoffrey Skelley wrote on FiveThirtyEight that literally any Democrat is up against it in deep red Kentucky. However, McConnell is among the most unpopular US Senators in any state, with a 36% approval rate and a 50% disapproval rate, according to Morning Consult. The means that Mitch is even less popular than the current occupant of the White House is nationwide. Worse for him, though, Mitch is far less popular than the current occupant is in Kentucky, where the current occupant had 55% approval rating (and 40% disapproval rating) at the beginning of July, also according to Morning Consult. Put another way, their poll standings are pretty much the exact opposite of each other.

So, Mitch’s weakness provides an opening for a strong Democrat, like Amy McGrath, to defeat him. Skelley correctly spelled out the challenges any Democrat might face in doing so, no matter how strong a candidate they are, but Mitch’s unpopularity could cancel all that out.

The polling so far also suggests that whoever the Democratic nominee is, they’ll have to run against Mitch, and not the current occupant of the White House (assuming, of course, that his popularity in Kentucky doesn’t do a huge nosedive, which is possible, but not probable). In other states, a Democratic candidate tying an incumbent Republican US Senator to the current occupant might help, but it appears that, for now, anyway, it wouldn’t help in Kentucky.

Another unknown is how the Democratic presidential nominee will affect the race. If the nominee is unpopular in solidly red states, it could encourage Republicans to go to the polls to vote against that candidate, and in Kentucky they may go farther and hold their noses and vote for Mitch. They might split their ballot, of course, but in the deeply polarised politics of the USA, that seems far less likely to happen now than it did in the past. In any case, because of Kentucky’s partisan makeup, motivated Republican voters would probably be a bigger force than motivated Democrats and Independents.

Still, it’s early days yet. The Kentucky Primary Election isn’t until May 29, 2020, and no one can possibly predict what might happen between now and then. Mitch won’t give up without a fight, obviously, but if this turns out to be an election cycle that favours Democrats, that will make his challenge much harder.

In the meantime, these ads are example of what can be done, especially in red states: Appeal to real people and highlight real issues. Voters respond strongly to authenticity, and that, combined with some good luck and a strong tail wind, could just be what’s needed topple Mitch.

Let us all hope so.