“Republicans in those suburban districts are really trying to hang on and appeal to those college-educated voters who are skeptical of the GOP, so they’re finding a way to be pro-mask without it being heavy-handed,” said Rob Stutzman, a Republican consultant based in California. Amanda Adkins, a Republican businesswoman running in the Kansas City suburbs, talked about the “invisible killer virus,” flashing images of children in masks. Genevieve Collins, a Republican running in a Dallas-based House seat, featured both masks and hand sanitizer in her TV ads on the pandemic. David Young, a Republican running to retake his Des Moines-based seat, showed footage of him talking outside to a family dealing with preexisting conditions, all while wearing masks. The president, who has pushed back on his own Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director for calling masks as effective as a vaccine at preventing the spread of coronavirus, appeared in a mask only for one second in one TV ad in the last month.īut the strict boundaries of pandemic politics in the presidential race don’t translate down-ballot, with candidates, at times, appearing to use them to get distance from the national party brand in ads that discuss coronavirus.įormer Iowa Rep. Meanwhile, fewer than 1 in 3 Trump campaign ads featured a mask in September - and some of those just had images of Biden wearing a mask. Many of Biden’s ads have ended with a photograph of the nominee and running mate Kamala Harris sporting masks. Three-quarters of Biden campaign ads in the last month, whether they were about the pandemic or not, featured mask-wearing, either by the candidate himself or those appearing in the spot. There is a stark party-line division in Trump’s and Joe Biden’s presidential ads. “Certainly, in the current political moment, with or without a mask … can send a lot of signals and messages.”

“The amount of mask-wearing in TV ads often aligns with the partisan index of the district and how deeply, or not, the district has dealt with coronavirus,” said Nick Everhart, a Republican ad-maker. But more often, candidates are looking to send a message by wearing one - or not.

In interviews with more than a dozen media consultants, some noted that mask-wearing can just be a result of logistics like filming in a business or a public space where there’s a mask ordinance. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Subscribe on Google Podcasts

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