In the final weeks of the 2026 midterms, political candidates have dragged their opponents’ families into campaigns, reflecting how divisive politics has become, with few barbs, if any, off-limits.
Some of the most audacious familial attacks — a departure from past campaigns when Republicans and Democrats barred their operations from such acrimonious hits — have come from Republicans, as polls show their candidates trailing in key races.
In Maine, Republicans have embarked on a campaign to cast Democratic Senate candidate Troy Jackson as “weird” because his longtime partner and mother of his two children, Lana Pelletier, is his second cousin. The Senate Leadership Fund, the top Republican super PAC focused on holding the Senate, is running a radio ad containing bleeped profanity in which a country-style performer sings, “Troy Jackson is weird. If he’ll [bleep] his own family, he’ll [bleep] yours, too.”
In Ohio, Republican gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy has put $4 million behind an attack ad against Democrat Amy Acton that features her long-estranged mother calling her daughter “a liar.” The ad has drawn bipartisan condemnation because Acton and her brother were removed from their mother’s home after Acton’s stepfather was indicted on a charge of raping her.
And in Michigan, Republicans and reporters have repeatedly questioned whether Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed condemns the Muslim Brotherhood because of old social media posts from his half sister about ties his mother had to the group. El-Sayed, who has criticized the group, was not raised by his mother, and Democrats have described the attacks as Islamophobic against someone who, if elected, would be the first Muslim senator.
Taken together, the attacks highlight a concerted Republican effort to draw families into political campaigns at a moment when the party is struggling to find a closing message that lands with an electorate that has grown increasingly skeptical of their unified leadership in Washington. Some Democrats have invoked their opponents’ families, including two candidates in battleground Senate races who accused their opponents’ husbands of profiting off their connections. The campaigning also extends to President Donald Trump’s personal attacks, including those targeting family members of his political rivals.
Several Republican operatives quickly lambasted Ramaswamy’s campaign but argued that the attacks on Jackson and El-Sayed were more valid.
“The Acton ad is tasteless and shows Vivek’s campaign didn’t do basic homework,” said Doug Heye, a longtime Republican operative. “It would be foolish to think the family issues surrounding El-Sayed and Jackson wouldn’t be used in the campaign, just as it was foolish of Vivek’s campaign not to do basic homework to realize their ad would massively backfire.”
Some Republicans worry the Ramaswamy ad campaign’s seediness could backfire not only on his gubernatorial campaign, but also on Republicans across the ballot in Ohio.
“This is a dastardly ad. It never should have been created. Shame on whatever consultant firm created this,” Meghan McCain, the daughter of the late GOP senator John McCain, wrote on X in response to the ad.
As the Republican presidential nominee in 2008, McCain pushed back against conspiracy theories about his rival, Democrat Barack Obama, by calling him “a decent family man” and instructing his campaign to keep the race focused on his policy disagreements with the senator from Illinois, not the Democrat’s family or personal background. McCain was on the receiving end of family attacks with false rumors during his 2000 presidential bid that his adopted daughter was his illegitimate child.
And McCain was not alone in 2008. When it was revealed that the Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s teenage daughter was pregnant, Obama shut down any chatter about using the issue against the Republican campaign.
“Let me be as clear as possible,” Obama said. “I think people’s families are off-limits, and people’s children are especially off-limits. This shouldn’t be part of our politics.”
Mark Salter, a former top aide to McCain and Republican operative who has long opposed Trump, said the president “has just made it okay for people of low character to be in politics without pretending they are people of better character.”
“Most people hate it,” Salter said. “And I think Vivek Ramawasay is about to discover that.”
Not all Republicans have backed away from the ad, however, a sign that even the most audacious attacks are now seen as acceptable.
While campaigning in his home state of Ohio, Vice President JD Vance said, “Whether the ad was appropriate or not is not really my concern.”
“Politics is a tough business, and my message to my fellow elected Republicans is: If you actually believe in the things you say you believe in, stop whining about an advertisement and go win the race in 13 days,” Vance said.
Democrats have sought to turn the attacks into opportunities to argue their opponents are out of touch.
Acton’s campaign released its own ad featuring Philip Stearns, Acton’s brother, recalling a difficult childhood and how his sister protected him.
“If she hadn’t done that, who knows where I would have ended up,” he said. “Shame on Vivek.”
Pelletier, Jackson’s partner, wrote an opinion piece published Wednesday that criticized his Senate opponent, incumbent Susan Collins, and Republicans for deciding “they know my life better than I do. They do not.”
“Our children have been dragged into this campaign. Our relationship has been mocked. Our family has been talked about as though there is something shameful about who we are or where we come from,” she wrote in the Bangor Daily News.
A spokesperson for the Senate Leadership Fund did not respond to a request for comment.
Shawn Roderick, a spokesperson for the Collins campaign, said the senator “believes there have been far too many personal attacks in this campaign” and called for the ad to be “taken down immediately.”
Republicans are not alone in pulling family members into campaigns.
During a debate between Jackson and Collins, the Democrat accused the Republican and her husband, Thomas A. Daffron, of making money off the Iran war. “She could use her leverage to stop this war, but instead, they’re making money,” he said, and his campaign later cited the couple’s oil and gas holdings.
Collins called the attack “absolutely outrageous” and demanded an apology from Jackson, who did not provide one.
In Iowa, Democratic Senate nominee Josh Turek accused his Republican opponent, Rep. Ashley Hinson, of contributing to a “corruption crisis” in Washington and called her husband a “shadow lobbyist,” a claim fact-checkers have deemed misleading.
“My husband’s not a lobbyist. He’s an insurance agent,” Hinson said during the debate. She added: “He works in our basement. He’s still working at home tonight while he’s home with our kids.”
And in Georgia, Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff hammered his Republican opponent, Mike Collins, in a recent debate over CNN reporting that his son-in-law, David Alan Scheer II, shared Nazi imagery online.
“How weak a person do you have to be to be unable to stop someone under your own roof from disseminating neo-Nazi propaganda while you run for the Senate?” Ossoff said.
Several Democrats, including operative Alyssa Cass, argued that candidates or their families enriching themselves through their office should be fair game in campaigns. But Cass also said campaigns now have to decide whether the personal attack is worth the risk.
“If you are someone who comes off like a sleazy jerk, it can reinforce the perception that you are a sleazy jerk,” Cass said. “If you are someone who is seen like a good hang, it might undermine the perception that you are a good hang.”
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