Democrats are pinning their hopes of retaining their Senate majority on voters’ contempt for so-called “carpetbaggers.”
As Senate Democrats fight to prevent the defeat of several vulnerable incumbents in tough races in battleground states across the country, their campaign organizations and state parties are focusing on the character and record of the Republican candidates rather than policies.
“This is a traditional direction for campaigning, but it’s not necessarily effective,” said Republican strategist Doug Hay. “Given the overwhelming concerns about rising prices, the border and the overall direction of the country, this may be hard to break through.”
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Democrats hope that carpetbagging allegations against Republican candidates will save vulnerable incumbents in battleground states, such as Sens. Jon Tester (left) and Bob Casey (right). (Getty Images)
Historically, carpetbaggers were northerners who traveled to the South during the Reconstruction period after the Civil War in order to profit from weakened areas. In modern politics, carpetbaggers refer to politicians who move to new areas to run for office.
The party faces a severely disadvantaged Senate electoral map, with five incumbent Democratic senators facing tough re-election battles in Ohio, Montana, Nevada, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
“The slate of Republican Senate candidates is filled with outlaws who know nothing about the states they’re running for and candidates with enough financial scandals and problems to fill a bank vault,” Tommy Garcia, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), said in a statement earlier this year.
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Senators Jon Tester, Jacky Rosen, Sherrod Brown, Tammy Baldwin, and Bob Casey (Getty Images: Anna Moneymaker, Drew Ungerer, Ethan Miller, Sarah Silbiger)
“I believe Democrats used this attack successfully against Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania in the last election, and I think it’s just become kind of a ‘fashionable’ attack, but it’s by no means a new strategy,” explained Kyle Kondik, editor of the Sabatos Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
National and state Democratic organizations have repeated that argument, particularly with regard to Montana Republican Senate candidate and former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy and Pennsylvania Republican candidate Dave McCormick.
“Democrats cannot campaign on a platform of staunch support for Joe Biden’s policies of reckless spending, open borders and chaos around the world, so they lie about our candidate and refuse to debate the pressing issues facing the American people,” Mike Berg, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRCS), said in a statement.
In Montana, the race between Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) and Sen. Sheehy is poised to be the closest Senate race of the current term. Sen. Tester’s campaign has taken to calling his opponent a “carpetbagger,” an attack echoed by the state’s Democratic Party.
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After last week’s state primary, Tester’s campaign doubled down on his insinuations that Sheehy was “trying to buy Montana” in television interviews and emphasized his own roots.
“I think it’s going to be a very powerful debate in Montana,” said Democratic strategist Brad Bannon.
Sheehy is originally from Minnesota and moved to Montana in 2014, where he founded the company.
“Frankly, Tester is trying to appeal to a conservative audience,” Bannon said, noting that referencing Tester’s generational roots is inherently “conservative.”
On the left is Senator Jon Tester, and on the right is Republican Montana Senate candidate Tim Sheehy. (Kevin Dietsch/Louise Johns)
“Montana has a lot of insider-outsider politics because of the large number of people who have moved here from other parts of the country,” Kondik said.
Sheehy’s campaign declined to comment to Fox News Digital.
McCormick, who is running again for the U.S. Senate as a Republican for the GOP nomination in 2022, was born and raised in Pennsylvania and is known for starting a business there. The carpetbagger allegations began when it was reported that he also owns a home in Connecticut in addition to real estate in Pittsburgh.
“I think it would work in Pennsylvania because the Casey name is synonymous with Pennsylvania, just like the cheesesteak is synonymous with Philadelphia,” Bannon argued, referring to Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. Bob Casey’s family and long history in the state’s politics.
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“The industrial North has a higher percentage of residents who were born in the state than the Sun Belt, so these attacks may have a bigger impact, or at least Democrats are hoping, because they have a greater impact there,” Kondik said.
“Pennsylvanians across the state are joining Dave in his crusade to send a Pennsylvania native, combat veteran, military academy graduate and seventh-generation Pennsylvania job creator to the Senate to bring new leadership and fresh ideas,” McCormick campaign spokeswoman Elizabeth Gregory said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
McCormick previously ran for the Republican nomination in 2022. (Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
“Career politician and serial liar Bob Casey votes for Joe Biden’s failed policies 98% of the time, fueling a border crisis that has left over 4,000 Pennsylvanians dead from fentanyl, violent crime, record inflation and regulations that are devastating our state’s energy sector. On November 5th, Pennsylvania will retire the good-for-nothing Bob Casey and send Dave McCormick to the Senate,” she added.
“Democrats know they’re struggling to connect with voters on policy positions, with polls showing they’re struggling on issues that top voter concerns like immigration and the economy,” said Republican strategist Erin Perrin. So the party “has to appeal to voters emotionally and say they can represent them because they’re part of them,” she said.
Bannon argued that Democrats are focusing on these accusations of election fraud because of the independent voters they are targeting: “Independents in a two-candidate race are more likely to focus on personal characteristics in the final stages of an election than voters who have already made up their minds.”
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What’s more, the strategy “fits into a broader, more familiar rhetoric of Democrats attacking Republicans as wealthy and naive. It’s part of a larger conversation,” Kondik stressed.
But Perrin said appealing to home-grown emotions is usually not a winning strategy in a general election because “voters turn out to vote on Election Day because of what matters most to them every day, not because of where they’re from.”
