Healthcare has been a dominant talking point for both Democrats and Republicans this midterm election season, according to a recent review of political ads conducted by the Wesleyan Media Project. The issue is so prominent, in fact, that WMP has dubbed this fall’s race “the healthcare election.”
Between Sept. 18 and Oct. 15 of this year, 45.9 percent of airings related to federal races and 30.2 percent of airings in gubernatorial races mentioned healthcare, WMP reported in a release. Both parties have seen an increase in those mentions from past years, but Democrats are dominating the space, with 54.5 percent of all pro-Democratic airings touching on healthcare.
It’s a considerable jump from the 2010 midterms, when pro-Democratic ads mentioned healthcare just 8.7 percent of the time.
“Democrats see an opening to take control of the House, and they are mobilizing heavily to win every possible seat,” Michael Franz, co-director of WMP, said in the release. “They also see an outside chance of winning the Senate, but are working hard to mitigate any losses in red states with Democratic incumbents.”
WMP co-director Erika Franklin Fowler said the passage of the Affordable Care Act directly affected how political ads addressed healthcare after 2010. While Democratic ads shied away from the topic after implementation of the ACA, mentions reached an all-time high of 33.9 percent in Republican ads.
“After the Affordable Care Act passed, Democrats ran away from healthcare as a campaign talking point while Republicans used the issue as a central point of attack,” Fowler said in the release. “Unified Republican control of government has changed the calculus for both parties this cycle with Democrats going on offense and Republicans searching for new ways to talk about the issue.”
Conservatives continued to lean on healthcare as a talking point in each election cycle following 2010, working the subject into 28.4 percent of pro-Republican ads in 2010, 20.8 percent of ads in 2014 and 16 percent of ads in 2016. The number has spiked to 31.5 percent during the 2018 cycle.
Democrats followed somewhat of an opposite trajectory, mentioning healthcare in just 8.7 percent of ads in 2010, 7.6 percent of ads in 2012, 7 percent of ads in 2014 and 10 percent of ads in 2016 before jumping to 54.5 percent of ads this year.
After healthcare, corruption, jobs, prescription drugs and campaign finance were the four most popular talking points in Democratic ads, while taxes, public safety, jobs and pro-Trump sentiments took the cake for Republicans.
Find the WMP’s full report here.
After graduating from Indiana University-Bloomington with a bachelor’s in journalism, Anicka joined TriMed’s Chicago team in 2017 covering cardiology. Close to her heart is long-form journalism, Pilot G-2 pens, dark chocolate and her dog Harper Lee.