Exclusive: Deceptive mailers target voters nationwide: “they think voters are stupid”
Miller-Meeks said that the expenditures are filled with “constant lies and a flood of dark money and money for the Coasts.” Van Orden said it “smells like Democrat desperation,” and Molinaro told the Reporter that “Republicans aren’t buying Josh Riley’s lies about his long history as an open border activist, so his dark money allies are lying to them to suppress the vote.”
One of the mailers sent to a Michigan Republican urges Republicans to oppose Trump and instead vote for Randall Terry’s doomed third-party candidacy, because Terry is strong on pro-life issues.
In every downballot race, the groups all promote Libertarian nominees. In Texas, for example, a mailer urges Republican voters to “show your courage and vote your beliefs! Vote Libertarian.” Where there are no third party vote sinks, mailers urge voters to skip the Republican nominees. In one instance, voters received voicemails suggesting they oppose Molinaro from a number that when contacted by the Reporter on multiple occasions solely yielded a busy signal and then the line disconnected.
Some of the mailers may not even be legal. One of the mailers opposing Rogers, which was sent to the Reporter, doesn’t include a disclaimer about who paid for it.
These newly-constituted groups are not alone in mailing out what multiple Republican strategists called “dirty tricks”; the House Democrats’ super PAC, House Majority PAC, is under fire for erasing Republican Derrick Anderson’s 5th Group Special Forces hat and Special Forces T-shirt in mailers obtained by the Reporter.
“This is par for the course,” a veteran GOP strategist told the Reporter. “Eugene Vindman has nothing to run on and will not answer for his shady business dealings and questions around his military rank and false time in combat, so his allies resort to creating a fake photo of Derrick to undermine his surging opponent.” Vindman has faced questions for lying about his military record.
In an interview with the Reporter, Anderson said that Vindman is “lying about that because he’s doing it for political purposes to inflate his military record. If he’s willing to lie about that, what else is he going to lie to the people of the 7th District about?”
Colorado’s Democratic Party is taking the unusual step of sending out the mailers itself, trying to undercut Republican Jeff Hurd’s support with more conservative voters in the state’s contested 3rd District.
“These dirty tricks show how low Democrats will go, spending thousands to lie and scare voters,” a GOP strategist told the Reporter. “They know voters don’t trust their far-left agenda and can’t rely on their candidates’ records to win.”
