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      Democrats Face Deepening Peril as Republicans Seize on Inflation Fears

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      Economists warn that a blitz of midterm election campaign ads could push consumer prices even higher.WASHINGTON — Triple-digit gasoline bills. Bulging hamburger prices. A Fourth of July holiday that broke the bank.Prices are rising at the fastest rate in four decades, a painful development that has given Republicans a powerful talking point just months ahead of the midterm elections. With control of Congress very much in play, Republicans are investing heavily in a blitz of campaign advertisements that portray a dark sense of economic disarray as they seek to make inflation a political albatross for President Biden and Democrats.According to Kantar’s Campaign Media Analysis Group, candidates running in House, Senate and governor races around the country have spent nearly $22 million airing about 130,000 local and national television ads that mention inflation from early April through the beginning of July. Inflation was the 10th most common issue mentioned by Democrats and 11th most common for Republicans, according to the data, underscoring how critical the issue is to both parties this election cycle.The data released Wednesday showing that prices in June climbed 9.1 percent over the past year gave Republicans fresh ammunition against Mr. Biden and his party, ammunition that includes faulting Democrats for passing a $1.9 trillion stimulus package last year and efforts to push through additional spending in a sweeping climate and economic package known as “Build Back Better.”The intensifying focus on inflation is already weighing on Mr. Biden’s poll numbers. A New York Times/Siena College poll this week showed his approval at a meager 33 percent, with 20 percent of voters viewing jobs and the economy as the most important problem facing the country. Inflation and the cost of living followed closely behind. The poll also showed that the race for control of Congress is surprisingly tight.While gas prices have fallen from their $5 a gallon peak and there are signs that inflation might be slowing, consumers are unlikely to feel better off anytime soon. Gas prices are still much higher than they were a year ago, with the average national price for a gallon at $4.60 versus $3.15 in 2021, according to AAA.Voters view jobs and the economy as among the most important issues facing the country.Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times“It’s a very negative thing politically for the Democrats,” said Jason Furman, an economist at Harvard University and former Obama administration economic adviser. “My guess is that the negative views about inflation are so deeply baked in that nothing can change in the next few months to change them.”The White House, while acknowledging the pain that inflation is causing, has tried to deflect responsibility, saying that it is a global problem and attributing it to shortages of food and oil stemming from Russian President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.On Wednesday, Mr. Biden called the latest Consumer Price Index “out-of-date” given the recent fall in gas prices and said the data “is a reminder that all major economies are battling this Covid-related challenge, made worse by Putin’s unconscionable aggression.”8 Signs That the Economy Is Losing SteamCard 1 of 9Worrying outlook. More

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      In Ad, Shotgun-Toting Greitens Asks Voters to Go ‘RINO Hunting’

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      A right-wing Senate candidate accompanies a squad of heavily armed men as they storm a home looking for ‘Republicans in name only.’Eric Greitens, a Republican candidate for the United States Senate in Missouri, released a violent new political advertisement on Monday showing himself racking a shotgun and accompanying a team of men armed with assault rifles as they stormed — SWAT team-style — into a home in search of “RINOs,” or Republicans in name only.“Join the MAGA crew,” Mr. Greitens, a former Navy SEAL, declares in the ad. “Get a RINO hunting permit. There’s no bagging limit, no tagging limit, and it doesn’t expire until we save our country.”The ad by Mr. Greitens was just the latest but perhaps most menacing in a long line of Republican campaign ads featuring firearms and seeking to equate hard-core conservatism with the use of deadly weapons.It was posted online less than a week after the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol showed how threats by former President Donald J. Trump against his own vice president, Mike Pence, had helped to instigate the mob attack on the building.During a hearing by the committee on Thursday, J. Michael Luttig, a former federal judge widely respected by conservatives, suggested that Mr. Trump and his allies posed a “clear and present danger to American democracy.”The use of violent rhetoric has steadily increased in Republican circles in recent months as threats and aggressive imagery have become more commonplace in community meeting rooms, congressional offices and on the campaign trail.While much of the violent speech and image-making by Republicans has been aimed at Democrats, some of it, as in Mr. Greitens’s ad, has been focused on fellow party members thought to be insufficiently conservative.On Sunday, Representative Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois and a member of the Jan. 6 committee, published a letter addressed to his wife from someone who had threatened to execute the couple.By midafternoon on Monday, Twitter had hidden Mr. Greitens’ new ad behind a warning saying that it violated rules about “abusive behavior.” Facebook removed the ad altogether.Mr. Greitens’s campaign made no apologies for it, however. “If anyone doesn’t get the metaphor, they are either lying or dumb,” said Dylan Johnson, the campaign manager.The ad by Mr. Greitens, a former Missouri governor, comes as his campaign for Senate has stumbled following lurid allegations of blackmail, sexual misconduct and child abuse. In March, Mr. Greitens’s former wife, Sheena Greitens, accused him of abusive behavior, including an incident she recounted that loosened one of their son’s teeth. A number of Republicans, including Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, called on Mr. Greitens then to quit the race.Mr. Greitens has sought an endorsement from Mr. Trump, so far without success. His campaign chair is Kimberly Guilfoyle, the fiancée of Donald Trump Jr.Experts have warned that violent rhetoric can often result in actual physical violence.“When individuals feel more confident and legitimate in voicing violent sentiments, it can encourage others to feel more confident in making actual violence easier,” said Robert Pape, who studies political violence at the University of Chicago. “Unfortunately, this is a self-reinforcing spiral.”Some Republicans criticized Mr. Greitens for posting the ad.“Every Republican should denounce this sick and dangerous ad from Eric Greitens,” Barbara Comstock, a former Republican congresswoman from Virginia, said on Monday. “This is just a taste of the ‘clear and present danger’ that Judge Luttig talked about last week.” More

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      Deceptive Mailings, False Billboards: Voting Disinformation Is Not Just Online

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      A survey by election researchers argues that efforts to confuse or scare away prospective voters disproportionately target minority groups in battleground states.When it comes to elections, disinformation is not just a problem online.Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin argue in a new report that disinformation targeting communities of color in three battleground states circulated as often through traditional sources of information, complicating efforts to fight it.The misleading information was included in mailings and campaign advertisements in newspapers, radio, television and even billboards. Those efforts are more likely to reach voters in those communities than targeted disinformation campaigns on the internet.“Online disinformation is just one small piece of the puzzle,” said Rachel Goodman of Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan organization that commissioned the report. “There are many other failures in the information ecosystem that allow disinformation about elections to thrive.”False or misleading information about registering and voting is so pervasive, the researchers said, that it amounts to what they call “structural disinformation.” It affects not only elections but also other issues, like health care, creating information gaps that those propagating disinformation can exploit.The report argued that poor dissemination of changes in voting rules “creates openings for targeted disinformation and innocent misunderstandings which will keep members of that community from exercising their rights.”The report, based on surveys of election activists in Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin, also cited direct mailings sent to Black voters in Milwaukee containing false information about voting, though they were made to look like official documents.Billboards in Wisconsin wrongly warned that people with felony convictions could not vote after completing their sentences. In rural parts of Arizona, Native American voters had trouble providing proof of residence because they lived in places without United States Postal Service addresses.Changes to state election laws, like the one in Georgia that Republican lawmakers enacted after Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s presidential victory in 2020, are likely to compound the problem.“Structural disinformation, particularly structural disinformation related to the right to vote, has a disproportionate impact on communities of color and other historically marginalized communities,” the report said.The findings suggested that efforts to rebut disinformation should not be limited to online services. The researchers said the most effective measures involved direct contact with prospective voters — in person, at events or through direct mailings. Those efforts are expensive and labor intensive, however.The cumulative effect of disinformation and partisan controversy over elections has been to create distrust and demoralization, dampening turnout and eroding confidence in the government more broadly.“The low turnout rates and things that we see happening now in their states and their communities are at least in large part due to the ways in which over the course of time disinformation has made their communities skeptical of the American democratic system,” said one of the researchers, Samuel Woolley, the program director of propaganda research at the Center for Media Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin. More

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      North Carolina TV stations pull an attack ad against Cheri Beasley, a Democrat running for Senate.

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      Television stations in North Carolina made the unusual decision on Friday to take down an attack ad against Cheri Beasley, a Democratic Senate candidate, after complaints that the ad falsely accused Ms. Beasley of freeing a man convicted on charges of possessing lewd images of children when she served as chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court.The ad, made by the Republican Senate campaign arm, highlighted the case of “a child porn offender,” and it accused Ms. Beasley of having “voted to set him free.” A female narrator spoke ominously over images of a young girl and jail bars sliding open.On Friday, five TV stations in Raleigh and Charlotte said they would pull the ad or that they had “paused” it pending an examination of its claims, according to emails from the stations to Courtney Weisman, a lawyer working for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which were reviewed by The New York Times.On Thursday, two Charlotte stations took the ad off the air. A representative for the stations, WXAN and WSCO, explained in an email to Ms. Weisman that the ad’s claim about Ms. Beasley “is in error, as it appears the defendant was not set free” by the State Supreme Court decision.Chris Hartline, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which made the ad, defended the claims made against Ms. Beasley and said the Charlotte stations that acted on Thursday had not asked to see any documentation before making the decision.“Every word of the ad is true,” Mr. Hartline said in a statement. “This bizarre statement from a TV station that had yet to receive or even ask for our substantiation for the claim will be noted by our media buyers as they make future decisions about ad buys.”Dory MacMillan, a spokeswoman for Ms. Beasley, said, “Washington Republicans have been caught lying.”“Voters know Cheri worked with law enforcement to hold violent offenders accountable, and she will continue to keep our communities safe as North Carolina’s next U.S. Senator,” Ms. MacMillan said in a statement. Ms. Beasley is running against Representative Ted Budd, the Republican nominee, in a race for an open seat that is important in determining control of the Senate.The ad in question, titled “Failed Our Children,” ties Ms. Beasley to three cases involving child sex offenders. The attack against Ms. Beasley, who is Black, is reminiscent of attacks by Senate Republicans aimed at Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson during her Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Senators, led by Josh Hawley of Kansas, accused her of being lenient in sentencing in child pornography cases. A review by PolitiFact concluded that Judge Jackson’s sentences were consistent with those of other judges.The case that led to removal of the North Carolina ad involved a man named James Howard Terrell Jr., who was convicted in 2016 of possessing lewd images of minors on a computer thumb drive.An appeals court ruled that a detective had conducted an illegal search of the thumb drive, in violation of Mr. Terrell’s Fourth Amendment rights, and it sent the case back down to the trial court.In 2019, the State Supreme Court, with Ms. Beasley in the majority, upheld that ruling. As of May 2020, Mr. Terrell was still in prison, according to court records, and it was on that basis that Ms. Weisman, the Democratic lawyer, demanded the ad be taken down. “To claim that her vote somehow resulted in a defendant being ‘set … free’ is false,” she wrote.A lawyer for the Republican campaign arm, in a letter to TV stations about the ad, argued that North Carolina court records for Mr. Terrell state that his convictions were “vacated” after the Supreme Court heard the case. The lawyer, Ryan G. Dollar, accused the Democratic lawyer of attempting to “gaslight” TV station managers. Court records indicate that Mr. Terrell is no longer incarcerated. More

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      N.Y. Governor Candidates Flood the Airwaves With $20 Million in Ads

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      With the June 28 primary fast approaching, candidates for governor are spending big to get their message out to voters.An Army veteran. A bartender’s son. A hard-working executive, burning the midnight oil.These are just a few of the ways in which candidates vying to be New York’s next governor have introduced themselves to voters in a barrage of campaign advertisements before the June 28 primaries.In the Covid era where in-person campaigning still remains fraught, political ads offer candidates an opportunity to speak directly to voters, showcasing their qualifications and vision for the future.Four of the candidates for governor have spent a combined $19.8 million on television ads: Gov. Kathy Hochul and Representative Thomas Suozzi, both Democrats, and Representative Lee Zeldin and Harry Wilson on the Republican side. Other candidates, including the New York City public advocate, Jumaane Williams, a left-leaning Democrat, and Andrew Giuliani, a pro-Trump conservative, have not yet purchased ads on television, according to AdImpact, a firm that tracks television ad spending.There has, however, been some major ad spending on behalf of a familiar noncandidate, who is at least as of now not running for governor — former governor Andrew M. Cuomo.Hochul leads the spending warMs. Hochul’s first television ad shows the governor late at night at her desk in her Albany office, portraying her as an executive who has worked tirelessly since ascending to the governorship following the unexpected resignation of Mr. Cuomo in August.What the 30-second spot does not show is how Ms. Hochul has also worked tirelessly to raise campaign funds.The governor, who as of January had amassed a record-smashing $21.6 million campaign war chest, has so far spent more than $6.8 million in ad buys, according to AdImpact. Most of the spending, not surprisingly, has been focused on New York City and its suburbs, where most Democratic primary voters live.Wielding the power of incumbency, Ms. Hochul utilized her first ad to highlight some of the voter-friendly policy priorities she negotiated with lawmakers as part of the state budget in April. The ad underscores her efforts to confront some of the biggest election-year issues — crime and skyrocketing prices — by touting measures to crack down on illegal guns and cut taxes for the middle class.Ms. Hochul released a second television ad last week focused on her commitment to protect abortion rights in New York, shortly after news broke that the Supreme Court was likely to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that legalized abortion across the country in 1973.Similar to other Democratic campaigns nationwide, Ms. Hochul’s operatives are hoping to wield the issue against Republicans — the ad accuses two of her Republican rivals of wanting to ban abortion — and to galvanize Democratic voters in November, when control of Congress will also be in play.Representative Tom Suozzi has used his ads to focus on his vows to combat crime and lower taxes.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesSuozzi focuses on crime and taxesMr. Suozzi, a centrist Democrat from Long Island, has used his campaign ads to cast himself as the “common-sense” candidate and to attack Ms. Hochul. Some of the ads blame her for failing to address rising gun violence, chiding her for an endorsement she received from the National Rifle Association during her time in Congress.Mr. Suozzi has focused most of his ads on his promise to lower income and property taxes and to further roll back the changes to the state’s bail laws that the Democrat-led Legislature passed in 2019.Mr. Suozzi has repeatedly blamed bail reform for leading to the release of more criminals. He has accused the governor of not doing enough to fix what he sees as deficiencies in the bail laws, even though Ms. Hochul recently persuaded lawmakers to approve some changes.Mr. Suozzi, who trails Ms. Hochul in public polls, faces an uphill battle: The Democratic primary tends to attract the party’s most liberal voters, but he is running as an unabashed moderate unafraid of taking on the party’s vocal left wing.“It’s not about being politically correct, it’s about doing the correct thing for the people of New York,” he says in one ad, which the campaign named, “No B.S.”Mr. Suozzi, who had about $5.4 million in the bank as of earlier this year, has poured just over $3.9 million into television ad buys.He began spending on television ads as early as January, far before Ms. Hochul, but his campaign has not made ad buys in the most recent weeks of May, according to AdImpact.A representative from Mr. Suozzi’s campaign said that it had halted buying because of some uncertainty around the date of the primary, but planned to soon resume.Representative Lee Zeldin is running negative ads attacking the governor.Johnny Milano for The New York TimesZeldin goes negative on Hochul and state of New YorkMr. Zeldin’s television ads have consistently sought to link Ms. Hochul to the ills that his campaign argues have befallen New York because of Democratic rule, a recurring theme as he seeks to become the state’s first Republican governor in 16 years.Anchored on a pledge to “Save Our State,” Mr. Zeldin’s ads home in heavily on crime — they rail against bail reform and the defund the police movement — as well as the state’s high taxes and population loss.They also seek to tie Ms. Hochul, who served as Mr. Cuomo’s lieutenant governor for six years, to the scandals that led to his resignation (one calls her a “silent accomplice”). His campaign’s most recent television ad is focused exclusively on the arrest in May of Ms. Hochul’s former lieutenant governor, Brian Benjamin, on federal bribery charges.Mr. Zeldin, who is the Republican Party’s designee in the race, has used the ads to tout his own credentials as a military veteran and as a “tax-fighting, trusted conservative.”They make no mention of his staunch support for former President Donald J. Trump, who remains largely unpopular in his home state, where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans two to one. Mr. Zeldin voted against certifying last year’s presidential election in January 2021, a move Democrats have used as a cudgel against him.Of the more than $5 million in campaign money Mr. Zeldin had as of January, about $3.9 million has been steered into television ads.While Mr. Zeldin has spent almost $1.5 million in the New York City area, the majority of his television ad spending has gone outside the downstate region, targeting the state’s conservative voters.Harry Wilson, a businessman who contemplated running for governor in 2018, is hoping to upset the Republican nominee, Representative Lee Zeldin.John Minchillo/Associated PressHarry Wilson spends big on airtimeMr. Wilson, a businessman who has run for state office before, nonetheless entered the race largely unknown to voters. But he’s hoping that a slate of ad buys stretching from February to June will change that.Mr. Wilson, who is reported to be largely self-funding his campaign, has spent more than $5.2 million, according to AdImpact, outspending Mr. Zeldin, who is widely seen as the front-runner on the Republican side.Mr. Wilson ran a well-regarded campaign for comptroller in 2010 that captured the support of three major editorial boards, but he lost narrowly to the Democratic nominee, Thomas P. DiNapoli. He also contemplated running for governor four years ago, but decided against it.Mr. Wilson hopes that his record coaching troubled companies and center-right social views will appeal to moderate voters looking for a change.His ads focus on bureaucratic inefficiency, rising costs and population losses that Mr. Wilson blames on “corrupt go-along to get-along politicians.” Like some of his competitors, he promises to lower taxes and add police officers. But he also pitches himself as a fiscally conscious political outsider, with the perspective and experience to turn around a failing state.“I’m running for governor because I cannot sit by and watch as New York is devastated by career politicians,” he says in one ad.Ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo has released two political ads and has spoken at churches as part of his campaign to rehabilitate his image.Victor J. Blue for The New York TimesCuomo to New York: Don’t you forget about meThough he is not an official candidate for any office, the former governor has also run two ads — spending $2.8 million out of the campaign fund he left office with, according to AdImpact.The ads seek to restore Mr. Cuomo’s image after his resignation last year amid allegations of sexual harassment and to reframe him as the victim of political attacks.Mr. Cuomo ran the ads from late February until late March, heightening speculation that he might jump into the race, but hasn’t made any ad buys since then.Mr. Cuomo has denied any inappropriate behavior, and five district attorneys declined to prosecute claims against him after opening inquiries. However, the New York State attorney general, Letitia James, State Assembly investigators and many of those same district attorneys found Mr. Cuomo’s accusers to be credible.One 30-second advertisement begins with a smattering of newspaper headlines memorializing the closure of several investigations into sexual harassment and assault allegations, concluding that “political attacks won, and New Yorkers lost a proven leader.”The other seeks to remind New Yorkers of Mr. Cuomo’s achievements in office, citing the state’s gun laws, the $15 minimum wage and major airport and bridge projects.“I never stopped fighting for New Yorkers, and I never will,” he says. More

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      Meta Will Give Researchers More Information on Political Ad Targeting

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      Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, said that it planned to give outside researchers more detailed information on how political ads are targeted across its platform, providing insight into the ways that politicians, campaign operatives and political strategists buy and use ads ahead of the midterm elections.Starting on Monday, academics and researchers who are registered with an initiative called the Facebook Open Research and Transparency project will be allowed to see data on how each political or social ad was used to target people. The information includes which interest categories — such as “people who like dogs” or “people who enjoy the outdoors” — were chosen to aim an ad at someone.In addition, Meta said it planned to include summaries of targeting information for some of its ads in its publicly viewable Ad Library starting in July. The company created the Ad Library in 2019 so that journalists, academics and others could obtain information and help safeguard elections against the misuse of digital advertising.While Meta has given outsiders some access into how its political ads were used in the past, it has restricted the amount of information that could be seen, citing privacy reasons. Critics have claimed that the company’s system has been flawed and sometimes buggy, and have frequently asked for more data.That has led to conflicts. Meta previously clashed with a group of New York University academics who tried ingesting large amounts of self-reported data on Facebook users to learn more about the platform. The company cut off access to the group last year, citing violations of its platform rules.The new data that is being added to the Facebook Open Research Transparency project and the Ad Library is a way to share information on political ad targeting while trying to keep data on its users private, the company said.“By making advertiser targeting criteria available for analysis and reporting on ads run about social issues, elections and politics, we hope to help people better understand the practices used to reach potential voters on our technologies,” the company said in a statement.With the new data, for example, researchers browsing the Ad Library could see that over the course of a month, a Facebook page ran 2,000 political ads and that 40 percent of the ad budget was targeted to “people who live in Pennsylvania” or “people who are interested in politics.”Meta said it had been bound by privacy rules and regulations on what types of data it could share with outsiders. In an interview, Jeff King, a vice president in Meta’s business integrity unit, said the company had hired thousands of workers over the past few years to review those privacy issues.“Every single thing we release goes through a privacy review now,” he said. “We want to make sure we give people the right amount of data, but still remain privacy conscious while we do it.”The new data on political ads will cover the period from August 2020, three months before the last U.S. presidential election, to the present day. More

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      Josh Shapiro Defends Primary Ad Tying Doug Mastriano to Trump

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      Mr. Shapiro, the Democratic nominee for governor in Pennsylvania, said he was eager to start the general election campaign.Josh Shapiro, the newly nominated Democratic candidate for governor in Pennsylvania, defended on Sunday a television ad he ran that appeared to elevate the standing of the Republican rival he will face in November — a man Mr. Shapiro has called the country’s most extreme candidate for governor.The ad is part of a long-held strategy among campaign tacticians: elevate your most extreme rival, and peel away disaffected moderates from that rival’s party come November. Last week, Axios noted that the rise of far-right, Trump-aligned candidates could test this theory and that Democrats are “trying to engineer the rise of ultra-MAGA candidates they feel will be easier to defeat in a general election.”But in today’s highly polarized environment, in which party affiliation is deeply interwoven with people’s sense of identity, that strategy could backfire, as many Democrats were stunned to learn in 2016.During the Republican primary in Pennsylvania, Mr. Shapiro, the state’s attorney general, ran an ad that called State Senator Doug Mastriano “one of Donald Trump’s strongest supporters.” The ad went on to say that Mr. Mastriano “wants to end vote by mail. He led the fight to audit the 2020 election. If Mastriano wins, it’s a win for what Donald Trump stands for.”Mr. Mastriano was a central figure in Mr. Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election results and, if he wins in November, he could be in a position to overturn the results of the state’s election in 2024.On Sunday, the CNN host Dana Bash asked Mr. Shapiro if it was “irresponsible” to boost a candidate like Mr. Mastriano “because you think you can beat him.”It was not, Mr. Shapiro said. For weeks, Mr. Mastriano led the crowded Republican field, according to public and private polling, and Mr. Shapiro, who was uncontested for the Democratic nomination, said he was eager to have voters understand the choice they would soon face.“What we did was start the general election campaign and demonstrate the clear contrast, the stark differences between he and I,” Mr. Shapiro said. More

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      Attack ads have fueled sharp ups and downs in the Alabama G.O.P. Senate race.

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      The three leaders of Alabama’s Republican Senate race have experienced giddy ascents and, in some cases, steep plunges, with the result that Representative Mo Brooks and two first-time candidates, Katie Britt and Mike Durant, enter Tuesday’s primary election tightly bunched together in recent polling. Unless one tops 50 percent, which seems unlikely, there will be a runoff between the top two.One factor driving the ups and downs in the race is a flood of attack ads from deep-pocketed outside groups aligned with the candidates, which have spent freely to drive up negative impressions of their rivals. When voters say they aren’t swayed by TV ads, Alabama is Exhibit 1 that that is not the case.Mr. Brooks, who jumped to a lead in the race last year and was endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump, was attacked by a super PAC that received $2 million from the Senate Leadership Fund, which is aligned with Senator Mitch McConnell. The Senate G.O.P. leader, who is often at odds with Mr. Trump for influence in the party, doesn’t want the hard-right Mr. Brooks to join his caucus next year.An attack ad paid for by the super PAC funded partly by the McConnell group dredged up old clips of Mr. Brooks — a leader of Mr. Trump’s crusade to reverse the 2020 election — disparaging him in 2016. “I don’t think you can trust Donald Trump with anything he says,” Mr. Brooks said then.During the time the ad was on the air, Mr. Brooks saw his support plunge to 16 percent in one poll. Shortly afterward, Mr. Trump withdrew his endorsement. Mr. Brooks has since regained a competitive footing, thanks in no small part to attack ads aimed at his two rivals.Mr. Durant, a retired Army pilot who figured in the 1993 “Black Hawk Down” episode in Somalia, appeared to lead the race in the spring. But lately he has faltered, after being raked over the coals by a group calling itself Alabama RINO PAC, which is funded in part by the McConnell-aligned group. One ad, quoting without context remarks that Mr. Durant once delivered at the U.S. Army War College, includes him saying, “The first thing that needs to be done is to disarm the population.”Another ad went after a supporter of Mr. Durant’s as “a top Never Trumper.”The money behind both the anti-Brooks and anti-Durant ads comes from supporters, in state and out, of Ms. Britt, a former chief of staff of Senator Richard C. Shelby, whose retirement has opened the seat.But Ms. Britt has hardly gotten off unscathed. The Club for Growth, the powerful anti-tax group based in Washington, which supports Mr. Brooks, is trying to undermine Ms. Britt. One ad says she is “really a lobbyist” because of a prior job leading a business group in Alabama; it goes on to quote a tweet from Donald Trump Jr. in 2021 — back when his father liked Mr. Brooks — calling her “the Alabama Liz Cheney.”Many of the attacks seemed to have landed with voters, but also apparently confused them. There is no clear leader in the latest polls. More