Wives are hitting the airwaves across the country.
In the final, critical weeks in competitive congressional races, male Republicans struggling to appeal to female voters concerned about their records on reproductive rights are unleashing their spouses to make the pitch on their behalf.
Their ads often feature women in softly lit living rooms and pristine kitchens vouching for their husbands’ characters. Sometimes the women are driving S.U.V.s with young children in the back seat as they stop for gas and groceries, talking about how their husbands are champions for their families, and can be champions for yours, too.
Other times, candidates film footage of a wholesome family gathering around the dining room table.
In at least one case, such a gathering includes a candidate at the dinner table in a family-like tableau with a woman and children who are not related.
The campaign of Derrick Anderson, a former Army Green Beret who is running in a competitive race for an open seat in Virginia’s Seventh District, has posted footage of him posing with a woman and her three daughters in what looks like a photo that might be used for an annual holiday card. In another scene filmed for potential use in a campaign ad, Mr. Anderson is seated around the dining room table with the same woman and three girls, chatting and smiling.
But the people are not relatives. They are the wife and children of a longtime friend. Mr. Anderson, who announced this month that he was engaged, does not have any children of his own. His campaign website says he lives with his dog and does not display any of the photos.
A spokesman for Mr. Anderson did not respond to a request for comment.
The footage has not yet been used in any ad. It can be found on Mr. Anderson’s official YouTube page and is also posted on a website paid for by the National Republican Campaign Committee, where the organization provides resources for independent outside groups that are not allowed to communicate directly with campaigns but can use the information posted there to guide their paid media strategy.
The proliferation of women and families in campaigns this season underscores the importance for Republican candidates to be able to show off a family-friendly, relatable side to voters — especially women, who increasingly say the issue of abortion is central to their decision this fall.
In multiple election cycles since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, the issues of abortion and reproductive rights have been politically toxic for Republican candidates. Some are doing little to combat the impression that their party simply lacks empathy for women.
“It’s a little crazy, by the way — especially for women that are like past 50,” Bernie Moreno, the Republican Senate candidate in Ohio, said at a recent town hall, bemoaning the fact that abortion is a top issue for female voters. “I’m thinking to myself: I don’t think that’s an issue for you.”
So, from New York to Washington State, wives and other family members have taken center stage in ads.
Republican strategists said female voices in G.O.P. ads are not just for softening a candidate’s image on women’s issues: They are effective messengers when one of the top issues for voters who lean Democrat is the high cost of living.
“We have a massive gender gap, approaching a gender chasm, at the top of the ticket, with women far more likely to vote for Kamala Harris and men far more likely to vote for Donald Trump,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican strategist. “In most districts and states, there are more women registered to vote than men. It makes sense that Republicans would be trying to appeal to women, especially given the prominence of abortion.”
G.O.P. candidates certainly do not have a monopoly on the wife ad. In Virginia, Cindy Vindman is on the air making the case on behalf of her husband, Eugene Vindman, the Democrat running against Mr. Anderson. “Eugene’s a good man, he will always do what’s right and that’s why I married him,” she says in the ad.
But for the most part, it is currently a Republican-heavy strategy.
Standing alone in her kitchen, Stephanie Williams speaks directly to the camera and delivers a message of concern about her husband, Representative Brandon Williams of New York, a vulnerable Republican running to keep his seat.
“Democrats are lying about my husband again,” Ms. Williams says as she accuses his opponent of proposing “billions in free health care for illegal migrants.”
“That’s radical, reckless and wrong,” she says. “Central New York deserves better.”
Mr. Williams appears at the very end to “approve this message” and fist-bump his wife.
In an ad playing in Washington State, Heather Kaiser speaks as she runs errands with two young boys in the back seat of her car. “Raising a family here hasn’t gotten any easier,” she says. “Southwest Washington needs help, and I know someone who always fought for us. My husband, Joe Kent.”
Mr. Kent, a retired Green Beret and combat veteran who denied the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election and supported Jan. 6 defendants, appears at the end of the commercial, helping to unload the grocery bags. In attack ads, Democrats are focusing on Mr. Kent’s past support for a national abortion ban when he ran for Congress in 2022.
Representative Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican who represents a district President Biden won by six points in 2020, put his wife, Angie, on the air after Democrats ran an ad attacking him for cosponsoring a national abortion ban.
“Don is fighting for Nebraska families,” says Ms. Bacon, who is seated in a living room. “All families. All Nebraska families.” Mr. Bacon only appears in a montage of photographs as his wife speaks for him.
In Maryland, former Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican who is running for Senate, is airing an ad starring his stepdaughter. Addressing Democratic attacks that Mr. Hogan is “anti-woman,” she says, “Nothing could be further from the truth.”
Ads featuring a candidate’s wife or daughter have long been standard political fare for both Democrats and Republicans. But they have taken on increased urgency in this campaign cycle.
“There has been a resurgence of these ads, with Republicans being on the defensive on abortion in a way in which we haven’t seen in recent times,” said Isaac Baker, a veteran Democratic strategist and ad maker.
Alexandra De Luca, the vice president for communications at American Bridge 21st Century, a Democratic super PAC that conducts research and tracking on G.O.P. candidates, blasted Republicans for the tactic.
“Hiding behind your wife as a prop as you and your party work to dismantle women’s rights and risk their lives is a pathetic political move,” she said. “These Republicans should own their dangerous policies and their vicious insistence that women have no control over their own bodies.”
But the ads have long been popular, Mr. Baker said, because they work. While progressive Democrats sometimes have negative reactions to them, he said, suburban women who pay less attention to politics often respond emotionally to seeing someone they identify with vouching for a candidate they may know little about.
Mr. Baker himself reverted to the wife-as-character-witness strategy last cycle while working for Representative Vicente Gonzalez, a Democrat from South Texas. Mr. Gonzalez was being attacked for work he had done in the capacity of a public defender, representing drug smugglers and gang leaders.
In the commercial, his wife, Loretta, said: “I’ve shared my life with Vicente Gonzalez for 25 years. Vicente is honest, hard-working and a man of faith.” Mr. Gonzalez cruised to victory, winning his race by nine points.
Some candidates have deployed their wives to go on offense in commercials against female candidates they are hoping to unseat.
Sharon Hovde, the wife of Eric Hovde, the Republican banking executive running against Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, condemned an ad run by Ms. Baldwin’s campaign in a direct-to-camera rebuttal that accused the incumbent of operating a “dirty campaign” that had “gone too far.”
Ms. Baldwin had featured comments Mr. Hovde made in 2012 while running in a Senate primary. He argued that lawmakers should “do everything we can to support the family unit, and we have to stop government policies that reward those that are having children out of wedlock.”
Ms. Hovde countered that she was a single mother when she met Mr. Hovde. “Eric saw the difficulty I faced just trying to afford child care,” she said. “It actually inspired him to help single mothers here in Wisconsin.”
One Democratic candidate for Congress has a cheeky twist on the spouse ad.
Kristen McDonald Rivet, who is running for a House seat in Michigan, presents herself in an ad as a wonk who cannot stop talking about cutting taxes. “I could talk about cutting taxes all day,” she says, as her husband, Joseph, who has reached his limit for hearing about taxes, unbuckles his seatbelt and hurls himself out of a moving car.
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