Scenes of masked men toting guns and waving black Islamic State flags. Refugees scrambling across the border. Fires and explosions.
It’s not just a Donald Trump ad. Most of the Republican presidential contenders and their allies are now waging campaigns focused on fear — bombarding voters with ominous television spots that warn of national security threats and amping up their alarming rhetoric on the stump.
The commercials saturating the airwaves in Iowa and New Hampshire reflect how worries about terrorism are crowding out domestic issues such as tax policy and health care among GOP voters. The candidates are scrambling to out-muscle one another, offering dark assessments of the Obama administration’s fight against violent extremists and warning that their rivals are ill-equipped to take up the cause.
“It is time for us to open our eyes and not to think about the world as we wish it was but to deal with the world as we see it is,” New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told about 250 voters gathered at an Italian restaurant in Manchester, N.H., on Monday. “And it is a dark and dangerous place right now. In every corner that we look.”
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush delivers a similar message in a new spotthat begins airing in New Hampshire this week. “We are at war with radical Islamic terrorism,” he declares. “We have but one choice: to defeat it.”
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, shown here campaigning in New Hampshire on Sunday, says the world is a “dark and dangerous place.” GOP candidates are amping up their fearful rhetoric as the primaries near. (Katherine Taylor/Reuters)
And in Iowa, a new ad by a super PAC supporting Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas features a frightening montage of Islamic State militants, refugees on the run and rolling tanks before mocking Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida as a lightweight.
The deluge underscores the unconventional nature of the crowded 2016 Republican primary fight, one that has been dominated by Trump’s provocative exhortations portraying America as under siege. Even disengaged voters are being enveloped in warnings that the country is losing the battle against terrorism, just as the first nominating contests near.
The focus also reflects an eagerness among many Republicans to make criticism of the Obama administration’s handling of national security central to the campaign — particularly if the Democratic nominee is former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.
Elizabeth Wilner, senior vice president for political advertising at media-tracking firm Kantar Media/CMAG, said the spots now being aired by GOP candidates are more commonly seen at the end of an election.
“These are the sorts of ads you usually see in October, when viewers have become somewhat fatigued and immune, and you have to go that extra mile to clearly distinguish the choice between yourself and everyone else,” she said. “Scaring people is the fastest way to create an ad that resonates.”
The traditional introductory ad that lays out a candidate’s credentials has not resonated so far this cycle, GOP strategists said.
Presidential candidate Donald Trump released his first television ad spot Jan. 04. (Donald Trump)
A super PAC supporting GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz is airing an ad featuring a montage of Islamic State militants, refugees on the run and rolling tanks. (Mark Kauzlarich/Reuters)
A super PAC supporting GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz is airing an ad featuring a montage of Islamic State militants, refugees on the run and rolling tanks. (Mark Kauzlarich/Reuters)
“The saccharine bio spot is a thing of the past right now,” said GOP media strategist Brad Todd. “I think the voters are at a point where they don’t have a high level of trust or confidence in anybody in politics.”
Some are skeptical that anyone can out-Trump Trump. The proliferation of so many terrorism-themed ads with footage of shadowy figures could create a muddle in the minds of voters, said Fred Davis, a veteran Republican admaker working for a super PAC backing Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
“I think the residual effect of so many messages on the same topic is a giant zero,” Davis said. “People will hear so many similar messages, they will get confused. No one will have great results.”
The dominant focus on national security in the GOP race comes after the recent attacks in Paris and San Bernardino left voters deeply unsettled. In a December Washington Post-ABC News national poll, 39 percent of Republican-leaning voters said the threat of terrorism was the most important issue in their vote, outpacing the economy (28 percent), immigration (7) and tax policy and health care (both at 5 percent).
“If we don’t have security, we won’t have a country,” said Lee Guthrie, a 76-year-old retiree who turned out to see Cruz in Guthrie Center, Iowa, on Monday.
Earlier in the day, at a campaign stop at a bar in Carroll, Iowa, Cruz vowed that he would “defeat radical Islamic terrorists.”
“We will not weaken, we will not degrade, we will utterly and completely destroy ISIS,” he said, using an acronym for the Islamic State group as people cheered “Yeah!” and one man rang a cowbell.
“Every militant on the face of the Earth will understand, if you go and join ISIS, you wage jihad against the United States of America, if you take up arms and attempt to murder innocent Americans, you are signing your death warrant,” Cruz continued.
Meanwhile, Rubio delivered one of his most aggressive speeches to date, trying to position himself as the staunchest national security hawk in the field.
“When you vote for me, you will know exactly what you’ll get,” Rubio said in Hooksett, N.H. “You’ll get a president who will destroy terrorists overseas by authorizing whatever tools our commanders need.”
But Trump has been the most bellicose, pledging at his rallies to bar Syrian refugees, temporarily ban all Muslims and “bomb the s---” out of the Islamic State. His first TV ad, which hit the air this week, features an image of a U.S. battleship launching a cruise-missile strike and the photos of the killers in the recent California terrorist attack.
His rhetoric is resonating. Asked which of the leading candidates they would trust most to handle the terrorist threat, 50 percent of Republicans named the real estate tycoon, far outpacing Bush at 14 percent, Cruz at 12 and Carson and Rubio at 9 percent, the December poll found.
Not every Republican is playing along. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), whose non-interventionist views have marginalized him in the wake of Paris, said the fear-based appeals could backfire. “Polls go up and down depending on current events,” he said.
“The degree of anxiety will probably rest on whether there are other events of a major nature that intrude on the race,” said former senior Obama adviser David Axelrod, adding: “I continue to believe that the economy is the most durable and important issue.”
But Todd said national security is “the single best way to encapsulate the failures of the current administration — it’s the failure of their ideology and their competence,” and said Clinton “is the most vulnerable on the president’s policies in the Middle East.”
For her part, Clinton regularly denounces her GOP rivals for using fear as a campaign tactic. Instead, she repeats a favorite tag line that what the country needs is more “love and kindness” in politics.
In Keene, N.H., on Monday, she acknowledged that the campaign so far has been largely driven by Americans’ economic and security fears and anxieties, but she chastised politicians and “special interests” who exploit it.
“I think there’s a lot of anger, frustration, insecurity, fear in our country right now,” Clinton told a questioner inside the high school gymnasium here.
“I think it’s the responsibility, as somebody in leadership or vying for leadership, to understand that but not to inflame it ,” she added. “Not to use the kind of really abrasive and insulting rhetoric that we’ve heard too much of and to set people against one another.”
Scott Clement in Washington and Robert Costa in Washington; Jenna Johnson in Lowell, Mass.; Ed O’Keefe in Manchester, N.H.; Abby Phillip in Keene, N.H.; Sean Sullivan in Burlington, Iowa; David Weigel in Orange City, Iowa; and Katie Zezima in Guthrie Center, Iowa, contributed to this report.
Matea Gold is a national political reporter for The Washington Post, covering money and influence.
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