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Voters in South Carolina, Maine, North Dakota, Nevada and Texas 34th District will head to the polls today to nominate major party nominees across statewide and federal offices.
Dynamics in races across all of these states led to a handful of interesting ads, including one featuring The Joker and another featuring a cardboard cutout of a candidate.
Here are five ads that stood out to us:
Nevada Senate
Former state Attorney General Adam Laxalt and veteran Sam Brown are engaged in a tough Republican primary for Senate. Early polls had Laxalt far ahead of Brown, but since then, Brown has gained some momentum and closed the gap. In an ad from late May, Trump made a direct-to-camera appeal to Nevada voters in Laxalt's favor, showing just how much Laxalt believed Trump could help his chances.
Nevada Governor
Democrats got involved in the GOP primary here, using a shell group to run ads against Joe Lombardo, the Clark County Sheriff. A narrator in the ads calls him "slick Joe Lombardo," alleging, "Joe Lombardo disbanded the anti-gang unit. There were marked increases in rapes, robberies, assaults and homicides. Then Joe Lombardo cut 112 Police Department positions. ... while Slick Joe Lombardo is off running for governor."
South Carolina-07
GOP Rep. Tom Rice faces a primary challenge from state Rep. Russell Fry, who has been endorsed by former president Donald Trump. Rice drew Trump’s ire when he voted in favor of Trump’s impeachment following the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. In his first ad of the primary battle, Fry had an actor impersonate Rice in a meeting with The Joker, Maleficent and other villains. In the ad, the actor playing Rice confessed, “I supported tax increases and I even voted to impeach President Trump,” before the other villains kick him out of the meeting.
Texas-34
Republicans are looking to flip this South Texas seat, where former Democratic Rep. Filemon Vela resigned from Congress earlier this year, leaving a special election in his wake. Republican frontrunner Mayra Flores has touted her husband's work as a border patrol agent on the airwaves and has raised more money than the Democratic frontrunner, Dan Sanchez.
Flores was aided by outside spending from the Republican Congressional Leadership Fund before their Democratic counterpart, the House Majority PAC, jumped in to aid Sanchez. In their Spanish-language ad, the Democratic group attacked Flores, linking her to Republican “violence and terror,” like the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol.
Nevada-02
Republican Rep. Mark Amodei found himself in tricky territory when a primary challenger, Danny Tarkanian, started running ads against him. Amodei, who's been in Congress since 2011, had to jump onto the airwaves to defend himself. CLF also joined in, spending over $460,000 to run an ad against Tarkanian, with a narrator saying, "Some people will do anything to get elected," and hitting him on his stance on immigration.
