The New York Times - USA (2020-08-06)

THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONALTHURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 2020 Y A

On July 25, Republicans in
Grundy County, Tenn., gathered to
hear the candidates in the state’s
Senate Republican primary hold
forth ahead of Thursday’s elec-
tion. Most of them kept their com-
ments polite and predictable —
and then came Bill Hagerty.
Though there are 15 names on
the ballot, Mr. Hagerty, the race’s
Trump-endorsed front-runner,
singled out his main opponent,
Manny Sethi, with an attack-filled
tirade, claiming that Mr. Sethi, an
orthopedic surgeon, had an
“abysmal” record of supporting
the Trump agenda and a soft spot
for “socialized medicine.”
Amid a chorus of boos from Mr.
Sethi’s supporters, Bill Lee, the
governor of Tennessee, who has
remained publicly neutral in the
race, nudged Zach Wamp, a for-
mer congressman from the area.
“Have you ever seen anything like
this?” he asked.
“No,” Mr. Wamp, who has en-
dorsed Mr. Sethi, recalled, re-
sponding, “I haven’t.”
Mr. Hagerty, a former private-
equity executive who served as
President Trump’s first ambassa-
dor to Japan, was long considered
a shoo-in to replace Lamar Alex-
ander, a much-admired former
governor who has served in the
Senate since 2003. But Mr. Sethi
has run an insurgent-style cam-
paign, casting Mr. Hagerty as in-
sufficiently Trumpian and pulling
within a few percentage points of
the lead — a sudden turn that has
pushed the race in an intensely
negative direction, with both can-
didates accusing the other of such
sins as supporting the Black Lives
Matter movement or being
friends with Senator Mitt Romney
of Utah.
The increasingly toxic primary,
in a state once known for its gen-
teel politics, highlights the trans-
formation of the Republican Party
since Mr. Alexander first captured
this seat nearly two decades ago.
Whereas Mr. Alexander, 80, cen-
tered his first Senate primary
message on electoral experience
and education policy, his would-be
successors have defined their
pitches almost entirely in terms of
Donald Trump — campaigning
not on ideas and vision but on a
blanket promise to support the
president, and to spurn those who
cross him.
In a state where 94 percent of
Republican voters support Mr.
Trump, it’s not a bad strategy. But
for some observers, the lead-up to
Thursday’s election has signified
the undignified demise of the
longtime centrist flavor of Tennes-
see Republicanism. Politicians
who might have once aspired to
the bipartisan statesmanship of
Senator Howard Baker are now
happy to contort themselves to
the ideological and dispositional
demands of Trumpism.
On paper, neither Mr. Hagerty
nor Mr. Sethi is an obvious fit in
Mr. Trump’s Republican Party,
and their campaigns have at times

appeared less like efforts to intro-

duce themselves to voters in full

than attempts at reinvention.

“The weirdness of how this par-

ticular primary has unfolded is

that you have two fellows sort of

running away from their records

— and I mean, they’re good

records — in order to show no day-

light between themselves and

President Trump,” said Keel Hunt,

the author of two books on Ten-

nessee politics.

Mr. Hagerty, 60, has the sort of

résumé that would make any es-

tablishment Republican proud.

He served as an economic adviser

to President George W. Bush be-

fore becoming national finance

chair for Mr. Romney’s presiden-

tial campaign in 2008. He and Mr.

Romney had been friends since

the 1980s, when Mr. Hagerty

worked for the Boston Consulting

Group and Mr. Romney for Bain

Capital.

In the 2016 presidential elec-

tion, Mr. Hagerty first served as a

delegate for Jeb Bush, then moved

his support to Marco Rubio; only

after Mr. Trump sealed the nomi-

nation did he come on board with

the future president, serving as

Tennessee finance chairman of

the Trump Victory Committee.

Mr. Trump later appointed Mr.

Hagerty ambassador to Japan.

The president was among those

who encouraged Mr. Hagerty to

run for Mr. Alexander’s seat,

tweeting in July 2019 that Mr.

Hagerty was “strong on crime,

borders & our 2nd” Amendment

and had his “Complete & Total En-

dorsement!”

Mr. Hagerty resigned from his

ambassadorship four days later.

And when he began his cam-

paign in September 2019, he did so

as a staunch Trump loyalist. He

hired the same consultants who

ran Marsha Blackburn’s success-

ful, Trump-centered Senate bid in

Tennessee in 2018, made the presi-

dent’s endorsement the corner-

stone of his message — and rarely

invoked his pre-Trump political

experience on the campaign trail.

He also began distancing him-

self from old friends. The day after

Mr. Hagerty announced his candi-

dacy in September, according to

filings with the Federal Election

Commission, Mr. Romney’s Be-

lieve in America PAC contributed

the maximum allowed amount to

Mr. Hagerty’s campaign — $5,600.

Bank records indicate that Mr.

Hagerty’s campaign deposited

the check. But in October, Mr.

Hagerty surprised Mr. Romney by

quietly returning the donation in

full.

(Neither the PAC’s contribution

nor Mr. Hagerty’s disbursement

of the refund appears in the Hag-

erty campaign’s filings, a potential

violation of campaign finance law.

A spokesman for the Hagerty

campaign said, “Once we realized

it was deposited, we alerted the

bank and we reversed the trans-

action, because we do not share

Senator Romney’s liberal, anti-

Trump political positions.”)

And when Mr. Sethi, trying to

position himself as the more au-

thentic ally of the president, called

Mr. Hagerty “Mitt Romney’s guy”

and erroneously claimed Mr.

Romney had endorsed him, Mr.

Hagerty attacked his former

friend, calling him “indistinguish-

able from Obama” and one of the

“most despised names in Tennes-

see.”

But for some in the state, such

denunciations, along with Mr.

Hagerty’s ceaseless promotion of

Mr. Trump’s endorsement, have

only served to highlight how un-

natural a mouthpiece he can seem

for Trumpism. “It just reads as

kind of a campaign tactic — not a

lot of heart and soul in it,” said Tom

Ingram, a former chief of staff for

Mr. Alexander. “Those of us who

know him know he’s not an ultra-

conservative, he’s not a fire-

brand.”

Mr. Sethi — an Indian-Ameri-

can, Harvard-educated orthope-

dic trauma surgeon at Vanderbilt

University Medical Center — is

hoping his own appeals to Mr.

Trump’s agenda appear more con-

vincing. In an interview, Mr. Sethi,

42, said he applauded the presi-

dent’s ideas for “meaningful im-

migration reform,” including

building a wall along the Mexican

border, and he praised his per-

formance during the pandemic,

adding that, as a physician, his

main advice to the president

would be to fire Dr. Anthony S.

Fauci, the government’s leading

expert on infectious diseases.

And while Mr. Sethi offers

masks at his events, he said he did

not believe it was the role of the

government to mandate that peo-

ple wear them.

He also proudly highlighted the

National Republican Senatorial

Committee’s efforts to force him

out of the race. “When I started

talking to these folks in the early

spring of 2019,” he said, “it was all

flowers and candy, and they were

saying, ‘Oh, it’s great, you should

run.’ But as I got more serious,

they put up these roadblocks.”

A spokesman for the committee

disputed that the group ever en-

couraged Mr. Sethi to drop out of

the race.

Mr. Sethi also said prominent

lawmakers “basically called me

and threatened” to blacklist him

with major donors, and reminded

him that Senator Mitch McCon-

nell, the majority leader, had al-

ready made his choice in Mr. Hag-

erty.

“I couldn’t care less about what

Senate leadership thinks about

me,” Mr. Sethi said.

Mr. Trump isn’t the only out-of-

state politician looming over the

race. The contest has become a

proxy war of sorts for Republicans

looking to gain a foothold in an

early, so-called S.E.C. primary

state ahead of the 2024 presiden-

tial election, with Senator Tom

Cotton of Arkansas stumping for

Mr. Hagerty and Ted Cruz of

Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky

hosting rallies for Mr. Sethi.

Mr. Hagerty also has high-pro-

file Tennesseans, such as Ms.

Blackburn and former Gov. Bill

Haslam, in his corner. And while

Mr. Alexander has not endorsed

any candidate, he said in a state-

ment that “there’s not a candidate

in the country the president has

more respect for than Bill Hager-

ty.”

But rather than enlist such

high-profile surrogates to help ar-

ticulate the choice before voters in

terms of policy and experience,

Mr. Hagerty and Mr. Sethi have

used their final weeks of cam-

paigning to exploit each other’s

perceived breaks from Trumpism

to the point of parody.

“Every day, you see another

negative ad or some new attack,”

said Stephanie Chivers, a long-

time adviser to Mr. Alexander. “I

think it just goes to show how

close this thing is. Three or four

months ago, I would’ve had Hag-

erty winning without a doubt, but

not now.”

Mr. Hagerty has relentlessly at-

tacked Mr. Sethi for donating $

in 2008 to ActBlue, a liberal fund-

raising platform. One recent Hag-

erty ad features a wounded vet-

eran who says the donation shows

that voters cannot trust Mr. Sethi

to defend the American flag.

Mr. Hagerty has also consis-

tently mispronounced Mr. Sethi’s

last name as “Set-ee” in ads and

speeches, which some Republi-

cans believe is a cynical ploy to re-

mind voters of the candidate’s In-

dian heritage.

Meanwhile, Mr. Sethi has tried

to link Mr. Hagerty to the Black

Lives Matter protests, running a

web ad that points to Mr. Hager-

ty’s recent position on the board of

an investment firm that issued

statements in support of the

movement after George Floyd’s

death at the hands of police in

Minnesota. (Mr. Hagerty resigned

from his board seat when a con-

servative news outlet publicized

the firm’s statements.)

Thursday’s election stands to

lay bare whether Mr. Sethi’s at-

tempts to cast Mr. Hagerty as a

pawn of the establishment are

enough to outweigh Mr. Trump’s

endorsement; it will also indicate

whether a Senate campaign, ab-

sent any other message, can suc-

ceed on that endorsement alone.

What is perhaps already clear,

however, is that the Republican

Party that Mr. Alexander long

sought to shape — a “governing

party,” he once wrote, that trans-

lated “principled ideas” into “real

solutions” — is not the one he will

ultimately leave behind.

MARK HUMPHREY/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Bill Hagerty, top, the Trump-endorsed front-runner in the race to replace Senator Lamar Alexander, above right, has traded attacks
over who is more loyal to the president’s agenda with his main rival, the orthopedic surgeon Manny Sethi, above left, with Ted Cruz.

ANDREW NELLES/THE TENNESSEAN, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS ANNA MONEYMAKER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Tennessee G.O.P., Once Civil, Turns Toxic Over Trump

Two Senate hopefuls

put the president’s

agenda on the ballot.

By ELAINA PLOTT

Election

Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s campaign

announced a $280 million fall ad-

vertising blitz on Wednesday, out-

lining plans for $220 million in

television and $60 million in dig-

ital ads across 15 states in the lead-

up to the November election.

The ad reservation, which will

begin on Sept. 1, is by far the big-

gest of the 2020 race by either

campaign and is a sign of the swift

turnabout in Mr. Biden’s finances,

as both small and large donors

have rallied behind him since he

became the presumptive Demo-

cratic nominee against President

Trump.

Mr. Trump has reserved more

than $145 million in television ads

in 11 states starting after Labor

Day; he has not announced the

size of his digital reservations.

In a conference call outlining

their fall strategy, Mr. Biden’s top

advisers laid out a fairly simple

and straightforward case heading

into November: The 2020 election

will be about Mr. Trump in gen-

eral, and his stewardship of the

nation during the coronavirus

pandemic in particular.

“This election is a clear referen-

dum on Donald Trump and his

failed leadership on Covid and

also on the economy,” said Jenni-

fer O’Malley Dillon, Mr. Biden’s

campaign manager.

Ms. O’Malley Dillon said the ad

buy reflected the campaign’s ef-

forts to open “multiple pathways”

to achieving 270 electoral votes,

with spending planned for states

both in industrial strongholds that

Mr. Trump won in 2016, like Michi-

gan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania,

as well as in more traditionally

conservative corners of the Sun

Belt, including Georgia and Texas.

Mr. Biden’s campaign declined

to say how much it was spending

in any particular state, but the ini-

tial ad buy included 10 states that

Mr. Trump carried in 2016 (the

five above plus Florida, North

Carolina, Arizona, Ohio and Iowa)

and five that Hillary Clinton won

(Minnesota, Nevada, New Hamp-

shire, Colorado and Virginia).

Despite an Electoral College

system in which winners are de-

termined by state, the Biden cam-

paign said it planned to continue

to book national ads, including on

“major viewing events” like

sports and news, and on networks

it said would target Black voters,

including BET, TV1, Bounce and

OWN, which together officials es-

timated would reach half of Black

households.

There are four states where Mr.

Biden is currently booking ads

and Mr. Trump is not: two that Mr.

Trump carried in 2016, Texas and

Georgia, and two states that Mrs.

Clinton won, Virginia and Col-

orado. Though Georgia is not part

of Mr. Trump’s fall ad buy, he has

been advertising heavily in the

state since June.

On the conference call, the Bi-

den campaign officials previewed

some of the messages and con-

trasts they intend to press in the

ad campaign. Mike Donilon, Mr.

Biden’s chief strategist, said that

the former vice president, Mr. Bi-

den, offers stability compared

with an “erratic” Mr. Trump, that

he represents “core American val-

ues” compared with “walking

away from them,” and that Mr. Bi-

den represents someone “willing

to bear the burden” of leading.

The campaign officials prom-

ised that Mr. Biden would make

his own case through ads that

would often be in his own voice. In

a memo, the campaign said it

would focus heavily on longer and

more expensive minute-long ads

versus the standard 30-second

spots.

“There’s a great value in being

able to positively speak to the cen-

tral concern of people’s lives,” Mr.

Donilon said. “The Trump cam-

paign is in a very difficult situation

when they are unable to speak to

the central issue in this country,

and that their entire campaign is

really an effort to distract people’s

attention.”

The Biden campaign included

Texas — and its bounty of 38 elec-

toral votes — in its initial fall ad

reservation.

The campaign has previously

made a show of announcing an ad

buy in Texas, but it actually spent

only $65,000 on that ad, according

to data from Advertising Analyt-

ics, an ad tracking firm. The cam-

paign did get some free airings, in-

cluding on MSNBC’s “Morning

Joe,” which ran the full minute-

long spot when the campaign an-

nounced it.

The Biden campaign’s effort to

compete in typically red territory

may also be intended in part to en-

courage Mr. Trump to spend

money there, even as polls show

opportunities for Mr. Biden in

some of those states. Ms. O’Mal-

ley Dillon noted the Trump cam-

paign’s recent efforts to retool its

advertising, which included a

brief suspension of television ad-

vertising last week.

“As we’ve seen in their reset on

their strategy and on their adver-

tising in a smaller footprint of

states, that’s not our approach,”

she said. “Our approach is to go on

offense, to have a broad strategy

across all platforms and channels

to reach voters where they are.”

On the call, senior Biden opera-

tives detailed their plans to use

paid media to target core constitu-

encies including Latino, African-

American and Asian-American

and Pacific Islander voters, as

well as both young and older vot-

ers.

Symone Sanders, a senior ad-

viser to the campaign, said the

team plans to pursue a youth-fo-

cused advertising program that

will include both televised com-

munications and a significant dig-

ital presence. Mr. Biden struggled

with younger voters in the prima-

ry and must find ways to energize

them this fall.

“We are committed to pursuing

all avenues to connect with

younger voters,” Ms. Sanders

said, pointing to options including

“expanding our paid media pres-

ence with younger-skewing apps

like Snapchat.”

And when it comes to Latino

outreach, the campaign intends to

“reserve a large bulk of advertis-

ing across Colorado, Florida, Ari-

zona, Nevada and Virginia,” as

well as to make “investments in

Latino paid media in Pennsylva-

nia and North Carolina,” accord-

ing to the accompanying memo.

Cristóbal Alex, a senior adviser

to the campaign, said the team

was committed to advertising in

ways that reflect a range of Latino

experiences in the United States,

with messages focused on the cri-

ses facing the nation, including

“Trump’s response to the civil un-

rest that remind Hispanics, in fact,

in some ways, of a strongman.”

“Our ads will speak to the di-

verse Latino population, such as

Mexican-Americans in Arizona,

Puerto Ricans in Orlando, Cubans

in Miami,” Mr. Alex said. “It’s a

very diverse community and we

get that.”

Biden campaign officials ex-

pressed confidence in the state of

a race that shows their candidate

leading many national polls by

double digits, with a vice-presi-

dential selection expected next

week and the national convention

the week after that.

For months, Mr. Biden has had

a far smaller public presence than

Mr. Trump, who has restarted his

regular press briefings on the co-

ronavirus and whose daily Twitter

missives drive cable coverage day

after day. Don’t expect that lower-

key approach to necessarily

change as the election nears,

aides suggested.

“I don’t think that we need to be

counterprogramming,” said Kate

Bedingfield, one of Mr. Biden’s

deputy campaign managers.

Biden Plans Ad Blitz

Worth $280 Million

In 15 Crucial States

By SHANE GOLDMACHER

and KATIE GLUECK

Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s campaign outlined plans to spend $220 mil-

lion on TV ads and $60 million on digital ads starting on Sept. 1.

HANNAH YOON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Donors have flocked

to the presumptive

Democratic nominee.