However, the party might be betting on the wrong issue.
The six-figure ad buy—first reported by Politico—depicts O’Halleran’s Republican challenger Eli Crane as “radical and dangerous” for his uncompromising support of anti-abortion measures even in instances of rape and incest, as well as the Trump-endorsed Crane’s myriad allusions over the years to white supremacist ideologies and right-wing militia movements outlined in a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee research memo earlier this fall.
But for O’Halleran, the message poses a risk of falling flat. Even after a sizable polling bump for Democrats in the wake of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, poll after poll has shown the predominant issues in the 2022 midterms remain inflation and the economy, with the latter remaining the most significant driving factor in voters’ decision to vote this year.
O’Halleran’s current district, Arizona’s 1st Congressional District, covers the largest amount of ground of any in the state, from the southern suburbs of Phoenix to the state’s borders with New Mexico and Utah. In addition to a 21 percent Native American voting population, the district is also 14 percent Hispanic, a demographic that has been trending conservative in more rural areas of the country.
In this cycle’s midterms, the congressman will be running in the state’s 2nd Congressional District. That newly redrawn district, which covers much of the same ground as his current district, has one key difference, however: the removal of a sizable chunk of the Phoenix and Tucson suburbs, and the addition of the city of Prescott, located in deeply conservative Yavapai County.
O’Halleran, a centrist Democrat who managed to hold onto a seat in a district that narrowly went for Trump in 2020, has had mixed success against Republicans over the years.
While he defeated current Republican State Senator Wendy Rogers—one of the leading voices in the far right who has endorsed a number of conspiracy theories in her time in the public eye—in 2018 by 7 points, he only narrowly edged out conservative attorney Tiffany Shedd in 2020, a candidate local media described as unburdened by the ideological problems of her more far-right opponents.
Most political analysts have predicted his newly redrawn district to likely land in Republican hands this cycle, while an internal poll from the Crane campaign in September showed O’Halleran within a point of the Republican. And that was before national polling this week released by YouGov and The Economist revealing a sizeable enthusiasm spike for the GOP that was absent during the height of the summer.
Newsweek has reached out to O’Halleran’s campaign for comment.
Crane—a former Navy SEAL and political newcomer—has meanwhile largely tried to shy away from the image he’d perpetuated in his successful primary bid earlier this year.
His first television ad, which depicted the candidate in a tattoo shop, highlights his military service, support for police and the border patrol, and his support of “election integrity” in a state that has become an epicenter of conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.
Entering the general election, Crane switched gears, focusing on border security and crime and inflation that his campaign claimed was perpetuated by Democratic policies. Meanwhile, the NRCC has run advertisements depicting O’Halleran—a former police officer—as a creature of the political system, highlighting his later work as a lobbyist and his career in public office, which has spanned more than a decade.
However, something seems to be shifting for an incumbent currently considered one of the nation’s most vulnerable this cycle. Where O’Halleran—known for his regular town halls throughout the district—was once considered doomed in his reelection bid, the Cook Political Report listed his district as “lean Republican” in September, even as FEC reports showed Crane with a significant spending advantage against the incumbent at the end of September.
Last month, Crane dodged a televised debate with O’Halleran, giving the Democratic incumbent a 14-minute platform to discuss policies he’d supported in Congress with a focus on more local issues, particularly the state’s allotment of water within the Colorado River Compact.
