Defund the Political Campaigns

I was minding my own business trying to watch some football and the MLB playoffs on a family visit to North Carolina this weekend, and boom, on comes yet another round of Texas Senate ads. Free Agent Politics sports fans elsewhere probably experienced something similar. It’s mostly a blur—something about voting this and trans that. I didn’t leave it on long enough to find out the punchline.

The more important question is, why the hell are Texas Senate ads airing during the Rams and Eagles game in North Carolina?

Well, the national Republican groups and their affiliated Super PACs have decided to spend an astonishing amount of money showing ads against their Senate opponents in states like Texas, Ohio, and Michigan. Except, for some mysterious reason, several of these ads air all over the country through mass national buys on high-profile sporting events, presumably to reach “males,” or some other highly targeted demographic that comprises roughly half the country. Over a recent weekend, for example, Republican-affiliated groups “ran 5,546 TV spots during the NFL and college games and pre-and-postgame programming where they advertised most heavily last weekend, compared with 471 for Democrats—nearly 12 times as many, according to ad-tracking data obtained by Axios.”

It’s not just Republicans. The Talarico campaign is doing something similar, except their ads keep showing up on YouTube for viewers in random non-Texas states when they’re trying to watch videos of the new Sturgill Simpson tour. (His campaign and Paxton’s also bought ads for the recent Cowboys-Commanders game—at least some Texas connection.)

If this were a presidential election year, this approach would make some sense if tied to a truly national campaign or issue concern. Trump successfully deployed a version of this strategy against Harris in 2024. But this is not a presidential year, and most of us watching these games (or concert clips) can’t vote in Texas. Nonstop car, insurance, beer, and pizza ads—these make sense. Ken Paxton and James Talarico mugshots, not so much. And at this late stage in the election cycle, it would be a curious fundraising model if that was their intent with the national buy.

This is not four-dimensional chess by razor-sharp political consultants. A more parsimonious explanation: these ad buys are a bumbling effort that reeks of desperation among Republicans trying to stave off the humiliating loss of their Senate majority in November. The stench of distress is understandable given the party’s current standing—particularly with independent voters who helped put Donald Trump back in office in 2024.

Maybe the party will hold the chamber after the November elections. If they do, it certainly won’t be due to moves like this.

The only reason this head-scratching ad campaign even exists is because people pour absurd amounts of money into political campaigns and related Super PACs with the ostensible purpose of (1) persuading Americans on the fence to vote their way, (2) prodding those who might be thinking about voting for their opponents to stay home, or (3) convincing their wayward partisans who are unenthusiastic to turn off the game and go cast a vote.

There’s so much money filling the party coffers that rich consultants don’t know what to do with it all. So negative ads almost entirely fill up our screens. Someone is going to trans your kid, invade your community, take your Medicare, or raise your grocery prices—that sort of thing.

I follow politics for a living, and I can’t confidently describe what either Democrats or Republicans will actually do with control of Congress in 2027.

I know they’ll attack each other nonstop, but beyond that we’re left with a few vague words like “affordability,” “fighting corruption,” “common-sense values,” or “supporting President Trump.” At least Newt Gingrich and more than 300 of his fellow Republicans in 1994 had the “Contract with America,” including ten specific promises on middle-class tax relief, deficit and welfare reform, congressional restructuring, anti-crime measures, and other issues. This year, it’s all broken contracts and nonsense ads clogging up your viewing pleasure.

The only way for political independents and other Americans (whether they are wealthy or not) to end these assaults in the future is to stop funding them altogether. Don’t answer party fundraising appeals by text or email. Don’t send money through websites or in response to a mailer. Don’t contribute to fake partisan PACs pretending to “protect America” or whatever. Give the money to your church or synagogue, your favorite charity, or the local animal shelter. Or buy some beer and pizza and watch more football.

Do your patriotic duty and defund the political campaigns.