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As he perused 49 ads about Montana’s consequential U.S. Senate race, veteran political consultant Jim Messina was struck by the absence of local issues.
The ads, most of which were produced by political action committees acting independently of either incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Tester or Republican challenger Tim Sheehy, emphasized national subjects. It was the opposite of the way Messina said he’d campaigned decades earlier for former Montana Sen. Max Baucus.
“I went and had my team pull the 10 organizations that are currently advertising on television and social media in Montana. Per voter, there’s more money being spent in Montana than any place in the country. None of the ads today, 49 ads — none of the ads were on a local issue,” Messina said.
The current CEO of the Messina Group was speaking on the second evening of MTFP’s Free Press Fest at the University of Montana in Missoula. He was joined (via Zoom, after a flight delay) by political consultant Matt Rhoades, co-CEO of CGCN Group, who managed Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign in 2012, the same year Messina managed President Barack Obama’s successful reelection bid. Maritsa Georgiou, who anchors the Scripps News America Tonight national broadcast from Missoula, moderated.
“Not one of the ads were on a local issue. To Maritsa’s point, they were all abortion, immigration, Social Security, national issues,” Messina said. “When I grew up in Max Baucus’ organization, he taught me all politics is local. What people care about are local issues that bind them together. We did these things called Baucus burger bonanzas, and we go and serve free burgers and free beer in every town in Montana. And the only thing is, we wouldn’t talk politics, and people could come and just see each other. That is just gone in Montana and gone around the country.”
By the end of Montana’s U.S. Senate election, which could decide which party has majority control of the Senate, PACs and candidates combined will likely have spent $250 million trying to influence voters, said Messina, who is currently working on campaigns in several countries where he says voters are highly engaged and spending is measured in the tens of millions, not quarter-billions. And the politics aren’t so divisive, he said. Candidates socialize with each other and accept election outcomes.
Rhoades said it isn’t the money or the nationalization of politics that’s dividing the public in the U.S. Rather, he said, Americans are just divided. Campaigns reflect rather than cause that division.
“I think it has more to do with the current political climate and just the angst and polarization that exists, than just the TV ads or the digital maps. I certainly think people are upset and fired up, and a lot of it gets blamed on the politicians for stoking the fires and lighting their hair on fire when they go out on a debate stage, or they cut a TV ad,” Rhoades said. “A lot of it comes back to the people themselves. A lot of times, the politicians get held more responsible for the entire political dialog in our country.”
Social media has leveled the playing field for people who otherwise wouldn’t have an audience to address, Rhoades said, combining freedom of speech with freedom of reach. Nothing has countered the high-dollar game of political messaging like social media has, Rhoades said.
Messina agreed that politics reflect the country, not the other way around.
The day before the “Nationalization of Local Politics” keynote at the University of Montana, polling data revealed that national issues were dominating voter priorities in Montana.
Immigration was the top election issue for Montana voters of every age group. Specifically for Democrats age 50-plus, the top issue was threats to democracy. The poll was conducted for AARP.
When issues were grouped, personal economic issues (inflation, economy/jobs, Social Security) became the top concern for 53% of the 1,064 poll respondents. (The margin of error for 600 likely voters polled was 4%. For the 800 polled voters aged 50 and older, the error margin was 3.5%.) The poll was conducted in a bipartisan partnership between Fabrizio Ward, which polls for Republicans, and David Binder Research, which polls for Democrats.
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