Lessons From the Losers: 5 Big Political Don’ts of the 2014 Midterm Elections
Here's how not to campaign.
— -- Republicans are set to march into a new session of Congress with the Senate majority well in hand. But despite the outcome, candidates on both sides of the partisan divide made mistakes.
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Here are five big don’ts future candidates might take from the past election cycle:
1. Don’t plagiarize.
Then-Sen. John Walsh, a Democratic Iraq War veteran from Montana, was in line to permanently succeed Democratic Sen. Max Baucus. That was until The New York Times revealed that Walsh plagiarized at least 25 percent of his master’s degree final paper at the U.S. Army War College, copying selections of “academic papers, policy journal essays, and books” without crediting them. Walsh dropped out of the race less than a month later and Rep. Steve Daines, a Republican, won the seat handily on Tuesday.
2. Have an answer for whether you voted for the president.
Considering how fashionable a vote for President Obama was in 2008 and 2012 among Democrats, it came as a rude awakening to Democratic Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes of Kentucky when she was repeatedly pressed about whom she voted for in 2012. Grimes decided to not comment and refer to the “sanctity of the ballot box.” She lost her race to McConnell by a big margin Tuesday night.
3. Don’t make an ad showing a wheelchair when your opponent is paralyzed.
Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis, who lost by 20 points Tuesday to Republican Greg Abbott, ran an ad that her campaign stood by after its release. In it, Davis seemed to call attention to Abbott’s paralysis and wheelchair, accusing him of failing to support fellow paralysis victims while flashing an image of an overturned wheelchair. The once-proud Democratic base that rallied behind Davis’ underdog candidacy turned on her quickly, with Mother Jones decrying the ad as “offensive and nasty.”
4. Don’t hide from the campaign trail and media.
The worst campaign of 2014? According to FiveThirtyEight and ABC News' Matthew Dowd, that would be Michigan Republican Senate candidate Terri Lynn Land. Land was accused by a long list of Michigan reporters of hiding from the media and her state’s voters, refusing to advertise her campaign events ahead of time and literally running away from journalists. Democratic candidate, Rep. Gary Peters, defeated Land on Tuesday.
5. Don’t forget to live (or at least show up) in the district and state you’re running in.
During the general election, Republican and Democratic candidates were blamed for carpetbagging and living far from the places where they were running. Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, who will participate in a runoff election in December, had to fight criticism for listing her in-state residence as her parents’ home. Losing Republican Senate candidate in New Hampshire, Scott Brown, who formerly represented Massachusetts in the Senate, accidentally listed himself as a Massachusetts state senator on a campaign filing.