Why Republicans Campaign on Guns While Democrats Choose Not To - The New York Times - 0 views
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In Alabama, Gov. Kay Ivey unpacked lipstick, an iPhone and something else from her purse in one campaign advertisement — “a little Smith & Wesson .38,” she said. A Republican candidate for governor in Georgia declared in a different spot, “I believe in Jesus, guns and babies.”
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As the nation reels from a massacre at a Texas elementary school in which a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers, a review of Republican and Democratic advertising during the first months of 2022 highlights the giant cultural chasm over guns in America. As both parties have navigated their respective primary seasons, Republicans have been far more likely to use messaging about guns to galvanize their base in the midterms than Democrats — who are largely in agreement on the issue of combating gun violence, but have seen one legislative effort after another collapse.
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But more than 100 television ads from Republican candidates and supportive groups have used guns as talking points or visual motifs this year. Guns are shown being fired or brandished, or are discussed but not displayed as candidates praise the Second Amendment, vow to block gun-control legislation or simply identify themselves as “pro-gun.”
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“You basically have Republican primary candidates trying to explain to Republican primary voters that they are going to be on their side when it comes to the cultural cold civil war that’s being fought right now,”
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Within hours after the Texas shooting, shaken Democrats in Washington vowed to try again to pursue a compromise with Republicans on gun legislation that could move through the divided Senate. But the challenges were immediately evident, and Democratic outrage and frustration were palpable.
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How or whether the Texas school shooting, the deadliest since Sandy Hook, will change the midterm election landscape remains unclear.
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Ads for Josh Mandel, the former Ohio treasurer who lost the Republican primary for Senate, used the tagline “Pro-God, pro-gun, pro-Trump.”
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In New York, Representative Thomas Suozzi, who is waging a long-shot primary campaign against Gov. Kathy Hochul, is highlighting her support years ago from the National Rifle Association. For her part, a Hochul ad cites her work “cracking down on illegal guns to make our neighborhoods safer.”
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On the campaign trail, though, Mr. Fetterman has faced scrutiny over a 2013 incident in which, as mayor of Braddock, Pa., he brandished a shotgun to stop and detain an unarmed Black jogger, telling police he had heard gunshots. He has declined to apologize or say he did anything wrong.
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“We are exhausted,” she continued, “because we cannot continue to be the only country in the world where we let this happen again and again and again.”