Here in the Oregon/Washington area I have noticed that quite a few Republican ads do not mention Trump at all, or even the political party they belong to, even to the point of not hearing or even seeing on the banners the word “Republican”. I don’t see this trend on the Democrat side, though, and I wonder if politicians on the Right want people to assume that they are independent because the word “Republican” in their campaigns might lose them some votes.
Has anyone noticed this trend in their area?
A number of (UK) Conservatives have done the same in recent elections, including the London Mayoral race. Leaflets puts through the door either don’t mention the party at all or it’s relegated to the small print on the inside.
I have no idea if this strategy works or not in general. It certainly doesn’t work on me.
Here in Austin (a liberal city), not only do some Republican candidates omit their party affiliation on their sign banners, but they even emphasize the color blue, as if to make people think they are Democrats.
It MN, it seems to depend on who is sponsoring the ads. If it’s a PAC, then party isn’t usually mentioned, just a candidate’s name. In the runup to the primary, I don’t recall seeing Trump’s name mentioned in any of the ads, but honestly, I muted them and looked away from the screen after the first flurries were over.
Tina Kotek, openly a Democrat in both speeches and adverts, is the current Governor of Oregon. Republican Christine Drazen is running against her, but all her ads say just “Christine Drazen for Oregon” with no mention anywhere of Trump (who she heavily supports) or the Republican Party.
In Louisiana – at least on YouTube ads and ads seen through streaming** – political ads for US representatives and senator almost invariably trumpet a Trump endorsement, voting with Trump, supporting Trump, and so on. Note that here, at least in the television advertising I’m consuming, Democratic candidates for US representative and senator (yes, they exist) do not advertise – ads are invariably one Republican tearing down another (e.g. voting with Trump 95% of the time is berated as “liberal” compared to the double-plus-good duck-speaker who voted with him 100% of the time).
As far as I’m aware, Trump endorsements are batting 1.000 in Louisiana races for US representatives and senators. This year, Trump’s endorsement allowed Republican US Senate candidate Julia Letlow to spend less than 1/3 of what each of her Republican primary opponents spent and to erase a significant polling deficit in most early polling.
Note that one of Letlow’s 2026 Republican primary opponents was once-popular incumbent US senator Bill Cassidy – no hero lately, but was once more in the mold of Mitt Romney. In the 2020 Louisiana US Senatorial election, Cassidy was not primaried and received 97% of all Republican votes cast in the general. Six years later, after opposing Trump to an unconscionable degree for an upstanding Republican, Cassidy received just under 25% of the votes cast in the primary. Daring to ever oppose Trump ended up essentially costing Bill Cassidy 72 percentage points among Louisiana Republican voters.
Here in Kansas, the GOP primary was three white guys trying to out-Trump each other and one sane woman. The Trumpiest of the men (endorsed by DJT) won the primary. Since then, his ads haven’t mentioned Don–the ads have focused on attacking his Democratic female opponent. I suspect (and hope) that when the Democratic ad machine gets cranked up, we will see Trump’s name a lot, in less than flattering terms.
The same is true in our Senatorial race, where Trump toadie Roger Marshall doesn’t mention Trump at all, but continually tells us how woke his opponent is.
Both ad campaigns run by the GOP candidates do mention that they are members of the Republican party, which one might expect in ruby-red Kansas.
So in response to the OP: yes to party, no to Trump
Vicente Gonzalez, the incumbent Democratic congressman running in my district (one of the gerrymandered TX congressional districts), admits to being a Democrat. The way he does so, however, is somewhat odd. His campaign posters all say “the right kind of Democrat”. By which he presumably means an old school moderate South Texas Democrat, and not one of those “librul” one from New York of California.
Seems clever. I hope it works.
Does the local Democratic Party have anything to say about him?
Or certainly not one of those Socialists with the funny-sounding names.
He is a Blue Dog Democrat that his pro-gun and anti-transexual so he will vote with Republicans in those matters, but he is definitely anti-Trump.
Here in California, the Democrats have figured out a way around the new jungle primary system. Since the Republicans are basically irrelevant, in our primaries, the top two candidates, regardless of party run against each other in the general election. The plan is that that would often be two Democrats, giving us a real race to vote in.
In a recent senate campaign, one of the Democrats ran ads attacking one of the Republicans for being pro-Trump. If the two Republicans had split the republican vote, we would have had two democrats in the general. Those ads gave the edge to the candidate they attacked, letting him come in second and pushing the second-best democrat into third.
If it’s possible to educate the voters sufficiently, ranked choice seems like it could be a good way to go.
In South Carolina R lean hard into endorsements by Trump and supporting the Trump agenda, and smearing R opponents of being insufficiently supportive of Trump.
Heh. I had meant to footnote:
** Our household watches almost no broadcast television.
Incidentally … DOES broadcast television air political ads as often as it once did? Has there been a noticeable decrease in broadcast TV political ads compared to, say, 20-30 years ago?
I’ll tie this in to the OP’s topic, if tenuously: I wonder if, in 2026, Republican ads well outnumber Democratic ads on broadcast television because Republicans are broadly targeting an older audience. Further: In purple-ish districts (even those generally leaning slightly blue) maybe Republicans are cynically concealing their party identity for broadcast TV/radio advertising because older people may be considered easier to slip something past.
This is nothing unusual.
The standard rule is that if a political leader (like a President or Governor) has approval ratings of 55% or higher, you publicly tie your campaign to them. But if it’s 50%, linking to him has an equal chance of offending or enticing voters. And less than 50% (like Trump’s current 34%), linking to him will hurt you with twice as many voters as it will help. So don’t mention it.
Similar logic applies to party name. You assume that committed voters in your party will know who the party endorsed candidate us (via party Sample Ballot, direct mail, email, or phone) so you want to reach the other voters – the independents and possibly pick up some of the other party. Putting the party name means you won’t get any of the other party votes, and with independents you get mixed up with their general feelings toward that party (and they usually are 50-50 toward the parties). So often putting a party name has more possible downside than upside. So it’s safer to just stay with your own name alone.
That applies to reaching the general voting population. If you have a more restricted target, like in a party primary, or a big city vs. a rural area, those rules change. I’ve seen candidates that had 2 versions of their lawn sign, with & without party name; giving out the appropriate one depending on the location where it was to be posted.
For a long time I have noticed this trend not only in almost every TV ad for both parties, but even flyers sent by USPS. Nevertheless it is obvious based on the issues they mention, as pointed out by other posters.
In a couple of upper midwest states, people who are really Democrats are actually running as Independents. It is assumed that if they win, they will caucus with the Dems as do Bernie Sanders and Angus King.
In Idaho and Montana too. This might work (no guarantees, of course) if the person who won the Dem primary drops out. Which they have in most of these states. But the D candidate in Montana was obstinate and refused to do so. So the two will split the center-left vote and assure the Republican candidate wins even if it’s a blue tsunami.
Which could also mean that they favor the Republican candidate and are splitting the vote on purpose.