Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.
In the 2012 Missouri Senate race, incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill ran ads during the GOP primary campaign saying that Todd Akin was "too conservative." The idea of the "attack ad" was to drive GOP voters to Akin, her weakest potential foe. It worked. Other campaigns have tried variations of the "pick your opponent" ploy.
Republicans are doing it in Texas.
Dan Merica and Matthew Choi at WP:
Republicans in Texas, and nationwide, are looking to boost Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) in the closing days of the state’s Democratic Senate primary.
GOP spending on the race, which includes television ads and text messaging mobilization, underscores Republicans’ hope that Crockett, a congresswoman from Dallas, defeats Texas state Rep. James Talarico in the primary Tuesday. Some Republican operatives and leaders believe Crockett would be easier to defeat in November.
“I think Talarico is dangerous,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who is locked in a high-stakes Senate primary of his own against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, said last month. “He’ll probably beat Jasmine Crockett, and he’s capable of raising a lot of money. And if you look at the head-to-head with Paxton, it’s tied.”
A group with ties to longtime Republican operatives has been sending text messages to voters in recent days that tout Crockett’s opposition to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an issue that polling shows motivates the Democratic base. One Texan who regularly votes in Democratic primaries received the text messages, according to operatives working on the Texas races.
