The 2026 campaign is getting ugly — especially on the right

Any campaign that involves Donald Trump is bound to get pretty ugly. The 2024 campaign was marred by the now-president and now-Vice President JD Vance falsely claiming Haitian migrants in Ohio were eating people’s pets .

But the 2026 campaign is getting really ugly — especially on the Republican side.

Morality aside, the question is whether that ugliness is a sign of sound GOP strategy or of desperation. It seems to be a large helping of the latter.

The big news this week has been Ohio GOP gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s decision to run an ad featuring Democrat Amy Acton’s estranged mother calling her daughter a liar.

Left unsaid in the ad: Acton has said she hasn’t seen her mother since she was 12 years old, when her mother lost custody of her children and the man she married was indicted for allegedly sexually abusing Acton. Acton’s campaign has countered with an ad featuring her brother talking about the abuse they endured and saying, “Shame on Vivek.”

The Ramaswamy ad has roiled the GOP and the gubernatorial race. Prominent Ohio Republicans — including Gov. Mike DeWine, Sen. Jon Husted and Secretary of State Frank LaRose — have criticized the ad, as have Republicans elsewhere, like Iowa GOP Senate candidate Rep. Ashley Hinson and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a former presidential rival of Ramaswamy. Some are criticizing the politicization of a family trauma. Others are fearing it will backfire.

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Trump and Vance have both urged their party to get with the program and stop criticizing the ad, and Trump said Thursday night that he personally helped convince Ramaswamy to move forward with it.

But that’s not the only recent example of the GOP stooping to new lows in this midterm campaign.

In Texas, Vance recently made a joke that implied Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico is gay — elevating a long-running campaign of innuendo on that front. (This despite prominent Trump administration officials being gay .) And meanwhile, MAGA fueled a later-debunked conspiracy theory that Talarico had gone to a mental hospital.

In the Michigan Senate race, GOP former Rep. Mike Rogers’ campaign is running an ad saying his Democratic opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, “supported” terrorists and that his “ radical ideology is a threat to our national security. ” (The ad and similar claims distort the facts .)

In North Carolina, a GOP congressional candidate and the national GOP have teamed up on an ad that appears to use AI to depict her opponent dancing with drag queens .

And in Maine, the top Senate GOP super PAC is running a radio ad citing reports that Democratic nominee Troy Jackson’s longtime partner is his second cousin, with a chorus saying, “If he’ll screw his own family, he’ll screw yours, too.”

GOP Sen. Susan Collins has coyly alluded to this too, but on Wednesday she called for the ad to be taken down . The super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund, hasn’t responded to a CNN inquiry about whether it plans to do as Collins suggested.

Jackson’s partner responded obliquely in an op-ed on Wednesday, saying she never thought Jackson’s opponents “would stoop this low.” (Jackson’s campaign hasn’t directly addressed the claim.) And despite the GOP attack, Republicans didn’t seem troubled that a once-iconic modern GOP politician, Rudy Giuliani, married his second cousin .

Time will tell whether any of these tactics pays off. But it’s worth noting that the long-running innuendo about Talarico doesn’t seem to have thus far helped Republican Ken Paxton, who’s locked in a tight race to defend this red-state seat.

Many of these races feature more polls with the Democrat numerically leading than the Republican — though many polls are within the margin of error.

The Ohio gubernatorial race, especially, could be getting away from the GOP. CNN’s Poll of Polls average shows Acton up by 6 points , 50%-44%, with all surveys in the average conducted before news about Ramaswamy’s ad.

So, you could perhaps understand why Ramaswamy’s campaign might want to try something. Indeed, when the video first surfaced on Monday, it included no disclaimer about who was behind it, and Ramaswamy didn’t initially claim it. But he later embraced it, and Trump has said he encouraged him to keep the ad up.

Husted’s and Hinson’s decisions to distance themselves from the ad certainly suggest they’re worried about its impact on their races.

Character and even underhanded attacks have long been a part of campaigns from both sides, but often the campaigns will try to keep them at arm’s length and let others do their dirty work.

This week, we saw both the president and the vice president not just defending the Ohio ad, but making rather Machiavellian cases for it.

While Hinson said it was “ absolutely terrible ” for Acton to have “to relive that trauma,” Vance shrugged off the moral issues.

“Whether the ad was appropriate or not is not really my concern,” he said, adding that Republicans should “stop whining about an advertisement and go win the race in 13 days.”

And despite claiming to know “nothing about” the backstory involving alleged child sex abuse, Trump praised Acton’s mother for her “courage” in speaking out. He said even a smidgeon of truth in the mother’s claims should disqualify Acton from serving as governor.

And pressed by reporters about the alleged abuse, the president repeatedly defended the ad.

What’s clear is that American politics is becoming more shameless. And if that strategy pays off for the GOP this year, it’s likely to get a lot worse moving forward.

任何与唐纳德·特朗普有关的竞选活动都注定会变得非常难看。2024年的竞选就因为现任总统和现任副总统JD·万斯谎称俄亥俄州的海地移民在吃人们的宠物而蒙上阴影。

但2026年的竞选变得越来越难看——尤其是在共和党方面。

抛开道德层面不谈，问题在于这种丑陋的行径究竟是共和党明智策略的体现，还是绝望之举的征兆。看起来，后者似乎占了很大一部分。

本周最大的新闻是俄亥俄州共和党州长候选人维韦克·拉马斯瓦米决定投放一则广告，广告中民主党候选人艾米·阿克顿疏远的母亲称她的女儿是骗子。

广告中未提及的是：阿克顿曾表示，自从12岁那年母亲失去抚养权，并嫁给一个涉嫌性侵阿克顿的男子后，她就再也没见过母亲。阿克顿的竞选团队则发布了一则反击广告，广告中她的哥哥讲述了他们遭受的虐待，并说道：“维韦克真可耻。”

拉马斯瓦米的竞选广告在共和党内部以及州长竞选中引发轩然大波。包括州长迈克·德瓦恩、参议员乔恩·赫斯特德和州务卿弗兰克·拉罗斯在内的多位俄亥俄州共和党知名人士都对该广告提出了批评，其他地区的共和党人，例如爱荷华州共和党参议员候选人、众议员阿什利·欣森以及曾与拉马斯瓦米竞选总统的前南卡罗来纳州州长妮基·黑莉，也纷纷表达了不满。一些人批评将家庭创伤政治化，另一些人则担心此举会适得其反。

通往2026年中期选举的道路现在开始

每周，亚伦·布莱克都会以犀利的分析，拨开政治迷雾，深入剖析可能决定国会控制权的选情、候选人和趋势。订阅《20/26 视野》周刊，了解今年中期选举的最新动态。

特朗普和万斯都敦促他们的党派配合，停止批评这则广告。特朗普周四晚上表示，他亲自帮助说服拉马斯瓦米继续推进此事。

但这并非共和党在本次中期选举中唯一一次刷新下限。

在德克萨斯州，万斯最近开了一个玩笑，暗示民主党参议员候选人詹姆斯·塔拉里科是同性恋——这使得长期以来围绕这一问题的影射愈演愈烈。（尽管特朗普政府的一些高级官员是同性恋。）与此同时，“让美国再次伟大”（MAGA）运动助长了一种后来被证伪的阴谋论，声称塔拉里科曾去过精神病院。

在密歇根州参议员竞选中，共和党前众议员迈克·罗杰斯的竞选团队投放了一则广告，称他的民主党对手阿卜杜勒·埃尔-赛义德“支持”恐怖分子，并且他的“激进意识形态对我们的国家安全构成威胁”。（该广告及类似说法歪曲了事实。）

在北卡罗来纳州，一位共和党国会候选人和共和党全国委员会联手推出了一则广告，该广告似乎利用人工智能技术描绘了她的对手与变装皇后共舞的场景。

在缅因州，共和党参议院超级政治行动委员会正在播放一则广播广告，援引报道称民主党候选人特洛伊·杰克逊的长期伴侣是他的远房表亲，广告中还唱道：“如果他连自己的家人都会搞砸，他也会搞砸你的家人。”

共和党参议员苏珊·柯林斯也曾含蓄地暗示过这一点，但她在周三呼吁撤下这则广告。超级政治行动委员会“参议院领导基金”尚未回应CNN关于其是否计划采纳柯林斯建议的询问。

杰克逊的伴侣周三在一篇评论文章中含蓄地回应道，她从未想过杰克逊的对手“会卑鄙到这种地步”。（杰克逊的竞选团队尚未直接回应这一说法。）尽管共和党发起攻击，但共和党人似乎并不在意曾经的现代共和党标志性人物鲁迪·朱利安尼娶了他的表妹。

这些策略是否奏效，时间会给出答案。但值得注意的是，长期以来针对塔拉里科的影射似乎并未对共和党候选人肯·帕克斯顿有所帮助，他正面临着一场激烈的选战，力图保住这个共和党传统票仓的席位。

在许多竞选中，民主党候选人的支持率领先于共和党候选人的民调数量更多——尽管许多民调结果都在误差范围内。

俄亥俄州州长竞选尤其有可能让共和党落后。CNN的民调汇总平均值显示，阿克顿领先6个百分点，支持率分别为50%和44%，而该平均值中的所有民调均在拉马斯瓦米竞选广告曝光之前进行。

所以，你或许能理解拉马斯瓦米的竞选团队为何想要尝试一些新花样。的确，这段视频周一首次出现时，并未注明幕后制作者，拉马斯瓦米最初也没有承认。但他后来接受了视频的版权，特朗普也表示曾鼓励他继续投放这则广告。

Husted 和 Hinson 决定与该广告划清界限，这无疑表明他们担心该广告会对他们各自的竞选造成影响。

人身攻击，甚至是卑鄙的攻击，长期以来一直是双方竞选活动的一部分，但竞选活动通常会尽量避免直接攻击他人，让其他人去做这些肮脏的事情。

本周，我们看到总统和副总统不仅为俄亥俄州的广告辩护，而且还提出了相当权谋的理由。

欣森表示，让阿克顿“重温那段创伤”是“绝对可怕的”，而万斯则对道德问题不以为然。

“这则广告是否合适并不是我真正关心的问题，”他说，并补充说，共和党人应该“停止抱怨一则广告，去赢得13天后的选举”。

尽管特朗普声称对涉及儿童性虐待的事件背景“一无所知”，但他还是赞扬了阿克顿母亲勇敢地站出来发声。他说，即使阿克顿母亲的说法只有一丁点儿属实，也足以取消阿克顿担任州长的资格。

面对记者们关于涉嫌滥用广告的追问，总统一再为该广告辩护。

显而易见，美国政治正变得越来越无耻。如果共和党今年的这种策略奏效，那么未来情况很可能会变得更糟。