Tuesday’s Democratic primary election in Pennsylvania remains a tossup in the final stretch, but if Rep. Joe Sestak pulls it off and defeats Sen. Arlen Specter, it will be thanks in part to his advertising strategy.
The state’s voters at first didn’t know Sestak, who has been viewed as the scrappy challenger to the longtime moderate senator since Specter defected from the Republican party in Spring 2009. While support for Specter has held steady for months in voter polls, Sestak started creeping up right about the time both candidates went on television. People on the ground in Pennsylvania think it’s the Sestak attack ad that repeatedly links Specter to former President George W. Bush that was the most effective.
The ad — which Sestak has spent at least $1.5 million running, a source tells me — was described by one TPM reader as “devastating.” It tries to paint Specter as a political opportunist who only switched parties to save himself. The Bush images and Specter quotes from just a few years ago serve to remind voters of his Republican loyalties and helped to drive up Specter’s negatives which were already high from years of serving the state, one top Pennsylvania journalist told me.
“Sestak surged thanks to that killer ad, which was all people saw on television for weeks,” the journalist said. “It’s amazing how long people’s memories are and when Sestak came on strong it brought back Clarence Thomas and all of the rest” of Specter’s long track record.
When Sestak (D-PA) went on the air April 20 with his first ad, a soft biographical spot showcasing his Navy record, the TPM Poll Average of their race had him trailing Specter 45.0-29.8. Now, as you can see below, our TPM Poll Average shows they are virtually tied with Sestak just barely leading Specter 44.3-43.0.
One state Democratic source backing Specter said that the only factor behind Sestak’s rise in the polls was Sestak himself, asserting that to know him is to love him. That first ad was a fuzzy bio spot that also spotlighted his daughter’s fight with cancer, and was aimed at building a positive image for Sestak with Democratic voters. The source said that did the trick, boosting Sestak’s numbers almost immediately.
That was followed up two weeks later with the tough ad starring Bush and former Sen. Rick Santorum. Sestak has consistently performed better in polls since that ad went on the air — and played on a constant loop on Keystone State televisions — in early May. As we reported yesterday however, there’s more context to the comments than is depicted in the ad.
Specter has thrown plenty of mud as well, going after Sestak’s Naval record with ads that made even top Democrats cringe as they drew comparisons with the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth spots from 2004.
Washington campaign types think it’s still anyone’s game, but admitted the Democratic establishment wrote off Sestak early on. “The biggest concern about him was whether he would be able to put together a functional, disciplined campaign. It turns out the answer is yes,” a Democratic source told me in an interview.
Democrats, pundits and journalists in the state that I’ve been speaking with also say Specter — with Vice President Joe Biden’s help — did a great job of pulling together the party establishment early on. That’s one reason he’s been able to hold steady as Sestak moved upward. Check out the trend:
Additional reporting by Evan McMorris-Santoro
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