The Obamacare Attack Ads Return

Republicans are once again hammering Democrats over the law:

Charlie Cook discusses at the ebb and flow of these attacks:

“The ACA is back to being a top issue in these closing weeks, and it probably was never realistic to expect it to remain as dominant as Republicans made it last winter and spring, when they had the extra incentives of undermining enrollment and lousy headlines,” says Kantar Media/CMAG chief Elizabeth Wilner, who is also a contributing editor for The Cook Political Report. Earlier this year, GOP strategists began advising their candidates and campaigns to diversify their message, saying that Republicans had milked the Obamacare cow to the point where there was no milk—that is, new support—to be gained. Strategists suggested that Republicans continue to talk about and advertise on the issue to a certain extent, to keep their base energized, but not to come across like a one-trick pony by talking solely about the ACA and the GOP’s issues with it.

Margaret Talev sees advantages and disadvantages for the GOP:

A Gallup Poll in early October found deep partisan divisions on Obamacare, with 80 percent of Republicans saying the law will make U.S. healthcare worse in the long run and 66 percent of Democrats saying it will make the system better. Independents were divided, with 42 percent predicting worse results, 32 percent predicting things would get better and 20 percent saying it would make no difference. Meanwhile, a Kaiser Health Tracking Poll out this week says voters still don’t like the law, but consider it a second-tier issue. They would rather improve the law than repeal it, and think congressional candidates should just move on.

But Byron York claims that Obamacare is a priority for voters “in states with closely contested Senate races, who regularly place it among the top issues of the campaign”:

In Arkansas, Republican challenger Tom Cotton is pulling ahead of incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor partly on the strength of a relentless focus on Obamacare. Cotton’s newest ad [above] attacks Pryor over the law, as did two of Cotton’s four previous ads.

“In our polling, [Obamacare] continues to be just as hot as it’s been all year long,” says a source in the Cotton campaign. “If you look at a word cloud of voters’ biggest hesitation in voting for Mark Pryor, the two biggest words are ‘Obama’ and ‘Obamacare.’ Everything after that is almost an afterthought.”

Regardless, Sargent bets that Republicans won’t make major changes to the ACA:

Yes, Republicans are running a lot of attack ads about the law, and yes, those are probably hurting Democrats. But at the same time, Republicans are retreating from, and dissembling madly about, their repeal stance. …

I’m not claiming the law was a plus for Democrats. It’s probably still a net negative. Democrats did not campaign on it as a major achievement, as some urged. But they have grown a bit more confident in defending the actual policy accomplishments the Affordable Care Act represents. Meanwhile, Republicans have retreated to a place where the word “Obamacare” has essentially become a catch-all to represent everything the GOP base knows they hate about Obama and everything independents find disappointing about the economy and overall course of the country. All of which is to say that while “Obamacare” will remain unpopular for the foreseeable future, whoever wins these races, the outcomes probably won’t have much to do with the actual real-world impact of the law either way.

Along the same lines, Jonathan Bernstein checks in “the governor’s races in nine states where Republican candidates have a decent chance of replacing Democratic incumbents”:

All of these states have carried out Medicaid expansions, a major part of the Affordable Care Act. But no matter how strongly these Republican candidates claim to hate Obamacare, check out their websites: Not a single one of the nine reveals any plans to roll back Medicaid expansion.

Most of them pretty much duck health care altogether, or duck it after ritual denunciations of the health-care law. It gets very murky. Bob Beauprez in Colorado, for example, promises to “partner with other governors to form a pro-active coalition to stand up for Colorado and fight for healthcare policies that are centered on patients and doctors, not bureaucrats in Washington or Colorado.” That’s close to promising to do nothing, isn’t it? It certainly isn’t any pledge of action.