The messaging in presidential political advertisements has dramatically shifted in the weeks since President Joe Biden abandoned his bid for a second term and Vice President Kamala Harris united the Democratic Party to seize the nomination.
A Washington Post analysis of data from the political research firm AdImpact found that Democrats have shifted the primary focus of their ads from Donald Trump’s character and dire warnings about the twice-impeached former president’s threat to democracy to issues such as abortion and the economy.
Republicans also have recalibrated their messaging, heavily focusing on immigration and accusing Harris of mishandling the U.S.-Mexico border among other criticisms.
Harris is set to accept the party’s nomination next Thursday at the Democratic convention in Chicago, a month and a day since Biden dropped his bid. In the weeks since, the two parties have changed the tone and topics of their ads, seeking to capitalize on issues to energize their bases and win over swing voters in what is expected to be a close Nov. 5 election.
Biden forged his 2020 and 2024 campaigns on a message casting Trump as an existential threat to the nation. But since he dropped out and Harris took over as the nominee, the Democratic ad campaign has shifted from that serious forewarning in favor of a sunnier political vision. The move comes as Democrats, including Harris’s choice for vice president, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, adopted a more colloquial criticism, calling Trump and vice-presidential nominee JD Vance “weird.”
With Harris’s shorter-than-usual runway to the general election, the most frequently run Democratic ads since Biden dropped out have been aimed at introducing her to voters by focusing on her biography, depicting her as someone who has fought for everyday Americans.
In one such ad paid for by “Harris for President,” a male narrator calls the vice president “fearless” and recites the arc of her career — from prosecutor to California attorney general to vice president — before talking about how Trump “wants to take our country backward.”
Another ad that aired nationally during the Olympics highlights Harris’s own remarks on abortion and the economy.
“I’m running to fight for an America where the economy works for working people, where you only have to work one job to pay the bills and where hard work is rewarded,” Harris says in the ad from FF PAC. “Where reproductive rights are not just protected by the Constitution of the United States, but guaranteed in every state because that’s our America, and that’s the America I believe in.”
On the airwaves, the data show that abortion, the economy and fighting crime also have been the top issues in the Democratic ads since Biden dropped out, replacing the previous top priorities of Trump’s character and cutting health-care costs.
The Republican ads portray a far different version of Harris, suggesting that she hid that Biden was unfit for office.
“Kamala knew Joe couldn’t do the job, so she did it,” a female narrator says in the ad, which was paid for by the MAGA Inc. super PAC. “Look what she got done. A border invasion, runaway inflation, the American Dream dead. They created this mess.”
The Post reviewed all presidential television political advertisements collected by AdImpact from Super Tuesday, March 5, through Aug. 9. AdImpact classifies up to three issues as the primary focus of each ad based on the narration and videos. The firm also measures how many times each advertisement has been aired. The Post analyzed which issues appeared most frequently before and after Biden dropped out.
The Harris campaign and officials from MAGA Inc., and Future Forward PAC had no immediate comment.
After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Harris became the Biden administration’s most vocal advocate for abortion access — an issue that the president, a practicing Catholic, had long struggled to discuss. The issue has proved to be a successful one for Democrats, and it’s expected to emerge as a motivating factor for voters in November.
There were major victories for abortion access last year in conservative-leaning states, and Democrats have seen a wave of election wins tied to their emphasis on protecting reproductive rights since Roe was overturned.
On Tuesday, Missouri and Arizona — the latter a key battleground state — both secured ballot initiatives aimed at enshrining abortion rights in their state constitutions, state officials said. The issue is also set to go before voters this year in Colorado, Florida, Maryland, New York, South Dakota and another battleground state, Nevada.
The GOP’s presidential campaign message has depicted a dark vision of Democratic rule, steeped in grievance about the direction of the country. Since Biden dropped out, Republican ads have focused less on inflation and the economy. Immigration has been emphasized in 98 percent of Republican presidential ads aired since Harris became the likely nominee. Other prevailing themes emphasized in the ads have included crime and illegal drugs.
When asked what drove the Trump campaign’s shift in messaging, national press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that the former president and his campaign would “use every tool at” their disposal “to ensure every American knows that Kamala Harris is responsible for the illegal immigration and inflation crises that we face.”
Republicans for years have attacked Harris as a failed “border czar,” deeming her responsible for dealing with the surge of migrants attempting to enter the country. Biden directed her as vice president to tackle the root causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. She was never put in charge of the border nor designated a “czar.”
Americans’ concerns about immigration have risen sharply this year, according to a poll by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs released earlier this month. Half of Americans said the large number of immigrants and refugees entering the country is a “critical threat” to U.S. interests, the highest level since 2010. The poll found that most Americans support two proposals laid out by Trump: using U.S. troops to stop migrants from entering the country and expanding the U.S.-Mexico border wall. But a larger majority of Americans oppose Trump’s proposal to put undocumented immigrants in mass-detention camps.
Immigration has not exactly been a great winning play for Trump since his 2016 run for president. Ahead of the 2018 midterm election, Trump leaned into the issue, repeatedly warning about the threat of a migrant caravan crossing into the United States. Although immigration was a top issue of concern for voters that cycle, Democrats were still able to take control of the House, largely on fears about the GOP effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Crime has also become a flash point of both campaigns. Democrats’ ads have focused on Harris’s record combating crime as a prosecutor. Republican ads assert that Harris was a progressive prosecutor who let dangerous criminals go free, and that she is responsible for the crimes committed by immigrants in the United States while she has been vice president.
Data released by the FBI in June showed drops in crime across the United States over the last year. Violent crime was down nationally in the first quarter of 2024 by more than 15 percent relative to the prior year, according to the data. And the drop in the number of murders reported by the FBI was also the largest in the country’s biggest cities. But not every law enforcement agency reports its data to the FBI on time, and the accuracy of reports provided by individual agencies varies.
Emily Guskin contributed to this report.
