This article was first published in the On the Trail 2024 newsletter. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox on Tuesday and Friday mornings here. To submit a question to next week’s Friday Mailbag, email onthetrail@deseretnews.com.
Good morning and welcome to On the Trail 2024, the Deseret News’ campaign newsletter. I’m Samuel Benson, Deseret’s national political correspondent.
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Have a question for next week’s mailbag? Drop me a line at onthetrail@deseretnews.com.
Here’s more of the Deseret News’ 2024 election coverage:
- Inside AFP Action’s door-to-door pitch for Nikki Haley
- Ron DeSantis-Gavin Newsom debate: How to watch and what to expect
- Sen. Mitt Romney criticized for saying who he might vote for in 2024
- Polls say Nikki Haley could beat Biden. But can she beat Trump?
The Big Idea
Do negative TV ads work?
I’m no fan of political TV ads. They’re often loud, repetitive and negative. Usually, they tell you more half-truths about candidates’ opponents than truths about the candidates themselves.
That said, I saw two really, really good ads this week — one from Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, and the other from Democratic President Joe Biden.
Here’s Ramaswamy’s:
And here is Biden’s:
Some thoughts. First, on Ramaswamy’s: What is more wholesome than an elderly piano teacher, bragging about her pupil from 30 years ago? The ad is short and humanizing — it makes him out to be kind and gentle.
There are some obvious political ploys, like the Christian hymnbook nestled on the piano, a nod to Iowa’s evangelical voters. As is the comparison to Reagan and Trump — calling him a “true conservative.” But come on. She taught him about the Constitution after piano lessons!
The Biden ad makes up for any lack of substance in the Ramaswamy ad. It’s focused on a middle-class health care worker, and it tries to draw a distinction between “the last administration’s policies” and Biden’s policy on prescription drug costs. It’s interspersed with shots of babies, and families and moms.
Will the ads win Biden or Ramaswamy any votes? I can’t say. There’s plenty of debate over the effectiveness of TV advertising in presidential campaigns. One study suggests that ads are much more effective in convincing voters who to vote for, versus getting people out to vote. But voter turnout is a positive result of “positive” advertising, another study says — like the ads above, which don’t name any opponents and are focused mostly on the individual candidates.
This campaign cycle has been full of the alternative. Trump released one ad that shows Biden falling down the stairs, over and over, and compares Democrats to “rabid wolves.” A Nikki Haley ad called Ron DeSantis a “liar” and then spliced an out-of-context comment to prove it. A DeSantis ad played graphic audio descriptions of Hamas’ attack on Israel and blamed Biden for the violence.
Perhaps candidates are tuning into the fact that most Americans are exhausted by politics. If positive ads really do increase voter turnout, I’ll be hoping for more.
Weekend reads
Imagine your father, a well-regarded pastor, just died. You return to your hometown church for his funeral. Instead of consoling you, congregant after congregant take the opportunity to lambaste you for your political beliefs. That’s what journalist Tim Alberta writes in his new book, a revealing, heart-wrenching window into what parts of the religious right have become. This excerpt, dealing with Trump’s rise and the conservative evangelical movement, is fascinating: My Father, My Faith, and Donald Trump (Tim Alberta, The Atlantic)
Does DeSantis have a prayer in Iowa? His supporters still think so, and a pair of high profile endorsers — Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats — do, too. But less than seven weeks separate us from caucus night, and DeSantis is getting heat from the front-runner, Trump, and his closest challenger, Haley — who is now polling neck-and-neck with him. Ron DeSantis Supporters Keep the Faith in Iowa (David M. Drucker, The Dispatch)
Biden won’t be on the primary ballot in New Hampshire, the final peg in an ongoing feud between the state and the Democratic National Committee over which state will host the first-in-the-nation primary. That’s left an open door for Biden’s long shot challengers — author Marianne Williamson and Rep. Dean Phillips, in particular — to capitalize off “a bunch of ticked-off New Englanders mourning the loss of a family heirloom” (their first-in-the-nation status). It’s open season in New Hampshire for Democrats not named Joe Biden (Kara Voght, The Washington Post)
See you on the trail.
Samuel
Editor’s Note: The Deseret News is committed to covering issues of substance in the 2024 presidential race from its unique perspective and editorial values. Our team of political reporters will bring you in-depth coverage of the most relevant news and information to help you make an informed decision. Find our complete coverage of the election here.