- Coming up on "IGI," we look at how candidates and parties are using television ads to influence voters in the 2022 elections.

Stay with us.

(soft chord) - [Announcer] This program is brought to you with support from the Lewis H. Humphreys Charitable Trust and from the Friends of KTWU.

(light music) - Hello and welcome to "IGI," I'm your host, Bob Beatty.

Advanced voting for the November 8th, 2022 elections in Kansas has already begun.

No doubt you've been seeing a large number of campaign ads.

On today's show, we'll discuss several contentious races in Kansas and examine how the candidates and parties are trying to influence voters with their TV ads.

Joining us today as Rebekah Chung, Capital Bureau Reporter for 27 News and via Zoom is Dr. Alexandra Middlewood, Assistant Political Science Professor for Wichita State University.

And thank you both for joining us.

And the campaigns have a lot of fun with their TV ads, and we will too.

But they also important 'cause they influence a lot of voters.

Now we're gonna start looking at the governor's race in Kansas.

Now with the governor's race, we have Governor Laura Kelly, who's the incumbent, a Democrat, and the Republican is Derek Schmidt, who is the attorney general.

And Kansas is a Republican state, meaning that a lot more people are registered as Republicans, but Laura Kelly won in 2018 as a Democrat.

And in Kansas, sometimes Democrats can win, but this race looks to be very close.

Rebekah, the polling has shown that, right?

- Right, just within about two percentage points for the governor's race.

And I think it shows just how much voters are kind of undecided about who to vote for.

You see Schmidt and he's really pushing forward with his arguments against the governor and the governor is putting out her bid to voters.

But I think more than not, we're gonna see a lot of voters come out and it's gonna be a split vote, very neck and neck when it comes to this race.

- Yeah, I think there's a potential, and you never know with elections, there's a potential for a late night, we call it that, where it's very, very close.

Alex, you know, Kansas is a quote unquote Republican state.

We have a, Kansas has a Democratic governor.

Why is this so close this time around when, especially in midterm elections, they tend to favor, you know, they tend to favor the party that's outta the White House?

- So it's relatively close for a couple of different reasons.

Laura Kelly definitely has an incumbent advantage.

We know that incumbents tend to win their races over 90% of the time when they run for reelection.

But also we are in, you know, a pretty chaotic political climate at the moment.

We just had the constitutional amendment on the ballot in August.

We have all sorts of issues that are going on that could either benefit Republicans or Democrats and that makes it a little too close to call in Kansas.

We also saw really large numbers of increased voter registration before that primary election in August.

And that's definitely gonna affect the general if those people turn out to vote.

- Let's take a look at the messaging in this governor's race.

What we're gonna look at is an ad from each candidate, and I'm calling these their intro ads, largely because they were the first ads that each candidate ran.

Technically, Laura Kelly's, this is her second ad, but it was Derek Schmidt's first ad.

So let's take a look at their ads.

- Like most Kansans, I'm not too far right or too far left.

I've always been pretty middle of the road.

And that's how I've governed, getting Republicans and Democrats to meet in the middle.

It's how we balanced the budget and eliminated the sales tax on food.

How we took a school system that was underfunded and made sure it was fully funded.

And it's how we're fixing roads all across Kansas.

Like this one right here.

(ding) Amazing what you can do when you govern from the middle.

(guitar music) - I'm Derek Schmidt, I've been all over Kansas and every county listening to you.

Joe Biden's inflation is hurting everyone and truth is Laura Kelly keeps making it worse, spending more than we can afford, vetoing 20 tax cuts for you and your family.

Kansas can do better.

Bob Dole used to tell me, Kansans will show you the way, just listen.

Well, I've heard you loud and clear.

As governor, I'll stand up to Biden and I'll fight for you.

- All right, we'll start with Alex.

What's your reaction to these intro ads from the two candidates?

- Particularly Schmidt's ad is a really great example of nationalized state and local elections, which is a trend that we've really seen more and more of in the last several years.

President Biden is not on the ballot, yet he mentions Biden's inflation, he mentions that he'll stand up to Biden.

And we've seen this trend in other states as well, where state elections have become more nationalized.

There's an increased association between the outcomes of presidential and down ballot elections.

And what that means is that things like presidential approval will have a greater impact on election outcomes for governor than candidates' specific factors or local political issues.

And so we see that, especially with Schmidt's ad here, where he's talking about national issues, but for a state level governor's race.

- Yeah, wait till we see the PAC ads in terms of that, but we'll get to those in a second.

Rebekah, your reaction?

- Well, with these two ads, I think what's been interesting to me is that when I'm just looking at these ads, I'm seeing some of the times the candidates just taking a little bit out of the competitor's ad and adding it to their ad.

Just in the first ad from Schmidt, we see him coming down the road and you kind of have the same feel even with the on camera presence.

I thought that was pretty interesting.

But to add onto what Alex was saying, I do see how a lot of this messaging has been surrounding two candidates that aren't in the race, that's gonna be Brownback and Biden.

And you see Schmidt.

- Spoiler alert, by the way, but go ahead with the PAC ads.

(laughing) - Right, and I think the big thing that we're seeing from Kelly is also her wanting to voice to voters that I'm not, you know, extremely liberal.

I am middle of the road.

And so she came out very strong with that messaging upfront.

- Yeah, and I think we have to remember that the, again, the breakdown in Kansas is about 45% Republicans registered and only of 25, 26% Democrat.

So for a Democrat to win, they can't go left.

They have to be literally be middle of the road.

And that's what she did in the ad, which is kind of fun.

The drone shot, she's literally in the middle of the road.

You're right, we're gonna see this play on the road, go on, it's going on till this very week in the ads and the back and the forth, back and forth.

And, but Kelly has no choice.

She's embraced this middle of the road all the way down the line, figuratively, because she has to.

Whereas I would argue that Derek Schmidt has a lot more latitude in where he can go and where he can appeal because, you know, he has a lot more Republicans to appeal to.

One other thing that I found interesting was he mentions the endorsement from Bob Dole and Bob Dole's passed away, but he did endorse Schmidt, Bob Dole did during the primary, before he passed away.

And of course, Bob Dole is become a bit of an icon.

And so that's a way I think for Derek Schmidt to tell people, you know, in his first ad, I'm not radical, you know, Bob Dole liked me, so I found that interesting too.

- [Rebekah] Right.

- We're gonna, now we're gonna take a look at political action committee ads, and I said, spoiler alert with Rebekah, because they've, the political action committees are of course committees that support a candidate and sometimes we know exactly who they are, sometimes we don't.

That's just the nature of American politics.

But political action committees tend to grab onto a theme and they also may do things that the candidates don't then have to do.

And I think we're gonna be seeing that.

So we're gonna look at a political action committee ad from the Kansas Values Institute, and that's a group that supports Laura Kelly.

And then we're gonna see one from the Republican Governor's Association, which as you can tell from their title is supporting Derek Schmidt.

So let's take a look at those ads.

- [Announcer] Twins, you know 'em when you see 'em.

And in Kansas, these twins are identical.

Sam Brownback and Derek Schmidt.

When Brownback cut millions from our schools, Schmit defended him in court.

When Brownback ran up massive budget deficits, Schmidt stood by his side.

And when Brownback refused funding for rural hospitals, Schmidt agreed.

You can't tell these twins apart.

- [Announcer] Joe Biden and Laura Kelly are out of touch, pushing a radical agenda that is hurting Kansas.

Thankfully, Kansas has a leader fighting back, Derek Schmidt.

He went to the courts to block the Green New Deal and fought Laura Kelly's plan to stop requiring healthy adults to look for work while receiving welfare checks.

And Derek is fighting to protect our kids from Laura Kelly's push to allow men to compete against girls in sports.

Kansas needs a fighter.

We need Derek Schmidt as governor.

- Now we obviously have two very smart guests on the show because both of them sort of said this, talked about this with the first two ads, but now it's full throttle with the PAC ads.

So Rebekah, you mentioned that Sam Brownback would be, was a theme of this campaign.

Talk more about that.

- Right, well, with Sam Brownback, we know that's another iconic figure in Kansas for probably the wrong reasons.

(laughs) And I think what you see is Kelly's side or the Democratic side really trying to tie Republicans that are running this year to Brownback and making sure that Kansans, I guess don't forget what happened with Brownback.

So I thought with this particular ad where you see the twins, it's kind of very explicitly doing what they're saying, right, tying them side by side.

You have Kelly, I mean, well Schmidt side by side with Brownback, and then in the next ad with Schmidt, you have Kelly side by side with Biden.

And so we see that sort of tie that they're trying to create there on both sides.

Biden right now being the president, they've been trying to tie him more so to the inflation conversation.

So I think you see them both kind of focusing on the economy, but also focusing on these two figures that are not in the race.

- Yeah and I love ads sometimes because they're not very subtle.

I mean they're joking about it, but as you say, they're really making sure they get their message across.

Alex, you had already mentioned this nationalization, and I knew it was coming of course in this ad, but I mean, this is just pounding at home, isn't it?

- Yeah, it is and it makes sense.

We know as political scientists, but also political communications and people who run campaigns, they know that fear and anxiety are powerful motivators for voters.

And so to hit hard on things like the economy, particularly in a time where we have a really unstable economy, prices are rising both on food and gas, and inflation is going up, so tying into those types of fears that people may have may not only motivate people to vote, but they can also impact who people are voting for.

People have this psychological need for stability, for order and fear, especially when invoked in political ads leads people to desire to protection.

And so they're more likely to vote for a candidate that they think is going to protect their interests.

And depending on the individual voter, there are different requirements for political remedies to those fear and anxiety and anger emotions that they may be having.

And so one way to do that, particularly for Republicans against Democrats right now, is to tie those democratic candidates like Laura Kelly to President Biden, to rising inflation and unstable economic factors that we're seeing right now.

- Yeah, and you know what's interesting, and this goes back to Kathleen Sebelius, she was a Democratic governor a number of years ago, is that national Democrats, according to polls, are really not very popular in Kansas.

Again, it's a pretty Republican state, a small C conservative state in many ways, and yet some democratic governors you know, have been able to win.

So what it looks like we're seeing, you know, from these ads is Laura Kelly saying, "Hey, I've been here four years, you know me," she's a very casual, "I'm middle of the road."

That's what she's arguing.

And it's actually, you know, the Schmidt campaign wants voters not to have that in their head.

They want to say, when you think of Laura Kelly, think of Joe Biden, and we want you to think of the national issues.

And we, it's really fascinating to see this continuous battle over the minds of voters about what they think about when they walk into that voting booth.

And it's ongoing, it'll go, you know, I guess we'll be seeing ads till the day of the election in that sense, don't you think?

- No, I agree.

And I also agree with what you're saying about Brownback and Biden.

I think it was during the first debate that one person came up and said, "Is this a race between Kelly and Schmidt, or is it a race between Brownback and Biden?"

And so is this going to pay off kind of tying, you know, each other to two different candidates that aren't, or two different people that aren't on the political stage right now?

- Right, and we don't have a lot of polling and well, we've had one poll, so.

(laughing) - We have a poll bomb.

- We've had one poll but I'm not, it's so hard to assess what the vote, how the voters are reacting to this.

It's up to the voters and clearly these are the strategies of these two parties.

And you know, I'm gonna be absolutely fascinated how the voters react, obviously, because we have such a lack of polling.

Polling would inform us, you know, if one of the candidates was jumping ahead, we'd say, Oh, it looks like that strategy's not working.

We don't know yet.

We're going to have to jump to the Attorney General's race.

But that's good because this is a wild, wild race, right?

On the ad, we do have two ads, one ad for each side, which is good, so we can show those.

But the Attorney General's race has been labeled by some national outlets as one of the most competitive in the entire country.

It features Chris Kobach as as the Republican.

Remember Derek Schmidt is leaving the office and Chris Mann is the name of the Democrat.

Now Chris Kobach is very well known in Kansas.

He was the former Secretary of State, he ran for US Senate, he ran for governor.

Chris Mann, very few people know who he is.

So what do you think, Rebekah, the challenges are for Chris Mann in a race where nobody knows who he is and what advantages are there for him?

- Right, well, with Chris Mann, I think it could work to his advantage that not too many people know who he is because he can kind of try to craft his identity now and distinguish himself from his competitor, Chris Kobach, who's been seen on a more public platform, right?

I think what he's going to have to do is prove, and I was speaking about this with another political analyst, but he's going to have to prove that he is someone who's gonna be tough on crime, that he's going to, you know, be able to really punch it in his role as Attorney General.

And I think you see that actually in the messaging he's putting into his ad cycle.

- Yeah, that's a great point and great lead up.

Let's watch his intro ad and then we'll ask Alex what she thinks of it.

Let's take a look.

- He's the right man for Kansas.

- He's the man.

- He's the man all right.

- Chris Mann for Attorney General.

- He's the tough as nails prosecutor who's put violent criminals in jail.

- He's guided by his faith.

- And a community leader who serves meals to seniors.

Thank you, Chris.

- You're welcome, Ms. Jones.

- But most importantly, - He's a great dad.

- He's not a politician, he's a police officer.

- That's why Kansas Republicans like me are crossing party lines to vote for Chris Mann for Attorney General.

- Okay, Alex, that's, it's a relaxing ad in many ways, but there's, I would argue there's a lot going on in there.

Tell us a bit about what you see.

- Yeah, it takes almost a more conservative candidate approach to political ads.

He distances himself from politicians.

He says, you know, he's not a politician, he's a police officer.

They mentioned that he's guided by his faith.

And so it almost takes on this type of persona that you would expect from a Republican ad, not necessarily a Democratic one, but politically it's a smart move.

As we just talked about 45% of registered voters in Kansas are Republicans.

And to win this race, he has to pitch himself not just to democratic voters, not just to independents, but he's gonna have to try to take some of those Republicans as well.

And while he is well less known than Kobach, he does have a little bit of name recognition in northeast Kansas.

He's done a pretty good job, as Rebekah mentioned, of pitching himself as a law and order Democrat, but with not being so well known, he doesn't come with a lot of the political baggage that Kobach does, and that definitely will work to his advantage in this race.

- Yeah, Rebekah, do you think he did a good job?

That's his intro ad you know, that's the first time.

- And I think what's really funny, you see him going up to someone's door with a bag of groceries,(laughs) I think it's, he's trying to really, I think, to center himself around the community and being this person that's not a politician, but someone that is for Kansans.

And I think with that sort of mentality, he's trying to distinguish himself from Kobach, because Kobach is, I think it's fair to say a career politician, right?

Someone who's constantly running and you could argue his, you know, looking for the next spot, right?

(both laughing) I mean that's what, - This is the seventh office.

(laughing drowns out speaker) Kobach is in a different office that he's run for.

- And so I think with Mann, what you're seeing is him trying to, you know, divert attention from that narrative and saying, I'm not here to be a politician.

I'm here to be the attorney general, and I'm not playing politics with this position, is what he's trying to say.

- You're right and it's the exact opposite of Kobach.

I mean, I think in many polls will probably show Kobach has the highest name recognition, probably next to Laura Kelly by far in Kansas, it's the exact opposite.

This ad literally is Chris Mann having people repeat his name.

So people can go, Oh, that's who he is, or that's who's running against Kobach.

And that's the first thing they had to do out of the gate.

Okay, so now viewers, all of us, we have to get ready for the next ad.

This is a political action committee ad in favor of Chris Kobach.

And you know, I first thought for those who take blood pressure medication, you know, they may wanna pop one before they watch this ad.

It's just got so much going on in it that, you know, I had to watch it about 10 times.

But, you know, almost, you wonder if there, you need some trigger warnings.

And I'm not joking because there's mugging going on, There's looting, I mean, there's so much.

So we're gonna find this one interesting.

Let's watch a pro Chris Kobach ad that that's been running and that supports him obviously.

- [Announcer] Inflation is soaring, violent crime is raging and democrat Chris Mann is silent.

He'll stand by as radical liberals spend more money, open our borders and defund our police.

The last thing we need is a liberal puppet in the Attorney General's office.

Chris Kobach is the common sense, tough on crime lawyer we can trust.

Kobach will reign in spending that's fueling inflation and wrecking our budgets and he'll support closing the border and backing law enforcement to keep us safe.

Chris Kobach for Attorney General.

- All right, we're all itching to get at this one first, but we'll start with Alex and we'll have to hold you at a few minutes because I know you could go on for the whole show, but after seeing this ad, what are your thoughts?

And by the way, is it effective for what it's trying to do?

- I do think it's effective.

I think if you are running for attorney general and you're trying to paint your opponent as being not so tough on crime or weak on crime, this is the type of ad that is certainly going to do that.

And people are gonna pay attention and remember that.

Once again, we're seeing nationalized state elections in this race or in this ad.

I mean, he's talking about closing the borders, which is not something that the Attorney General of Kansas can do.

He compares Chris Mann to President Biden.

And he also has, you know, this pretty extensive discussion of immigration in the ad, which is an interesting choice to me, considering that immigration is not necessarily, or immigration in the way that Chris Kobach likes to paint it is not necessarily that popular in Kansas.

A zero tolerance policy on immigration has less support in Kansas than people may think.

There's a poll from 2019 that the numbers show that only slightly more than half of Kansans support a zero tolerance policy to immigration.

That could be significantly different now, it's been about three years, but we really, we once again see that he's talking about national issues in this ad.

And, but I do think it's effective.

I think it gets the point across that he wants people to remember.

- Rebekah?

- Yeah and I think the strongest visual in there is probably gonna be Biden holding Chris Mann - Yeah, Alex was so nice.

She's like, "Oh, and there's an association."

Yeah, it's a puppet.

(all laughing) - It's a puppet.

I mean, these are the ties literally, you know, that the Republican party is trying to create when it comes to these, you know, democratic races or candidates rather.

And I think it does get the point across that they're trying to make, which is Chris Mann is is siding with Biden.

(laughing) - We'll get to hiding, we're gonna get.

And what's fascinating about this ad is it shows the creativity of Americans in this case.

Because you start off with all this, you know, emotion, the words soaring, raging, open our borders, defund, and then you're almost relieved when it goes to Chris Kobach.

Like, oh, good Kobach's here.

Okay, well we have to move on from that.

That was almost too exciting.

We're quickly gonna take a look at the third district congressional race between Amanda Adkins and Sharice Davids.

Sharice Davids is the Democrat and the incumbent, and Amanda Adkins is the Republican.

Let's go right to these ads so we have enough time to talk about them and the first one is a Sheree Davids ad, and then Amanda Adkins.

- [Announcer] His campaign manager, political appointee, his state chair, serving Sam Brownback has been good for Amanda Adkins.

In return, she spent her career helping him.

As a registered lobbyist, pushing his legislation in Washington.

In Topeka, helping pass the tax scheme that devastated Kansas schools.

When Sam Brownbeck's career was on the line, he put his trust in Amanda Adkins.

After all that, think she'll really work for you.

- I'm Sharice Davids.

♪ Sharice Davids ♪ ♪ What's she hidin' ♪ ♪ Sharice Davids ♪ ♪ She's hidin' Biden ♪ ♪ Inflation, taxation ♪ ♪ All your frustrations ♪ ♪ Sharice Davids ♪ ♪ Sidin with Biden ♪ ♪ Student loan manipulation ♪ ♪ Cost of living escalation ♪ ♪ Sharice Davids ♪ ♪ Sidin with Biden ♪ ♪ Economic devastation ♪ ♪ The wrong track for our nation ♪ ♪ So when you're votin' ♪ ♪ Don't forget what she's promotin' ♪ ♪ Sharice Davids ♪ ♪ Sidin with Biden ♪ ♪ And Pelosi ♪ - [Amanda] I'm Amanda Adkins and I approve this message.

- I'll admit I picked the two most creative ads from that campaign that I could find.

We only have a couple minutes, so let's ask Rebekah, give us 45 seconds on the first ad for the Davids' tying Brownback, and then we'll ask Alex to talk about hidin' Biden.

- Well the first ad, I think what she's pointing to is all of those affiliations that Amanda Adkins may have had with Brownback.

So, what was it, State chair or something like that.

Campaign manager was one of them.

- Yes, that's true.

So they're, and they're all true, but it's just the way it was presented.

That's fascinating.

- And I think hers, she's trying to be, you know, probably a little bit more like, these are the facts.

Look at who she's supported, look at who she's backed and who's to say she may or may not back him again.

I think you go to now Adkins and she got really creative.

I can hear a little anger there,(laughs) but I mean this, I think it's very strong in terms of saying, okay, what they wanna say, economic devastation.

we don't want this party, something like that.

It was a catchy tune.

- Yeah, I love the creativity.

Alex, we got about a minute, but just go for it.

- Well, it has been a long time since I've seen a political jingle used by a campaign like that, so I'll give her some points for that.

But I agree with Rebekah that the hidin' Biden tune, it's really catchy.

I don't think it quite invokes the same type of fear and anxiety that we saw some from the Chris Kobach ad in particular, where it was, you know, kind of dark and you had all of these violent types of scenarios happening in the background.

But it still definitely invokes that thought of the economy and that they're tying Sharice Davids to the Biden administration, particularly on economic issues, which is, you know, a big issue right now.

Lots of people are pocketbook voters and having a catchy tune like that, people are gonna remember it.

They're gonna be humming that tune all day long.

I know I certainly will be.

- Yeah, well, I'm glad we're able to end with those two ads.

That's all the time we have for this episode of "IGI."

If you have any comments or suggestions for future topics, send us an email at issues@ktwu.org.

If you would like to view this program again, or any previous episodes of "IGI," visit us online at watch.ktw.org.

For "IGI," I'm Bob Beatty.

Thanks to my guests and thanks for watching.

(light music) (light music) - [Announcer] This program is brought to you with support from the Lewis H. Humphreys Charitable Trust and from the friends of KTWU.