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The midterms are a month away. And as always, many of the political ads we're seeing rely on harmful racial rhetoric. In Michigan, Senate Republicans' campaign committee released a TV ad calling Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed "the most radical Senate candidate in America." The ad reads out his full name and claims he "pledged support for the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood," based on a 2011 article in which he supported Egyptian protesters. In Alabama, attorney general candidate Jay Mitchell aired a TV ad telling supporters of "radical Islam" that they "can Allahu Akbar your butt all the way back to the Middle East."
Asian American communities are facing similar attacks. In Tennessee, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who is running for governor, released an ad where she crushes fortune cookies while vowing to "crack down on China" – ending with the sound of a gong, of course. (Fortune cookies, for the record, were invented by Japanese immigrants in the U.S.) In Arizona, a California-based group used the same gong and stereotypical Asian imagery to call schools chief candidate Kimberly Yee the "empress of DEI." Even her opponent, Tom Horne, called it an "appeal to ethnic prejudice." And in Texas, Railroad Commission nominee Bo French posted a photo of South Asian fans at a UT football game as proof that Americans have been "displaced by foreigners."
In Arkansas, the controversy is running in the other direction. Last week, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders released an ad for new work requirements on public assistance, featuring "Brad," a young white man playing video games on a beanbag chair. Right-wing commentators were furious, but not for the reason you might expect. Matt Walsh suggested that a Black woman would have been a more "accurate portrayal of the problem at hand." The data doesn't support them, either. Although Black and other marginalized ethnic groups are more likely to be lower-income, white Americans make up 61% of people receiving food assistance. Black Americans make up 29%.
Latino communities are being targeted, too, mostly through the lens of immigration. Between January and June, Republicans and their allies ran nearly 300 ads about immigration in 88 races across 27 states, compared to 62 ads from Democrats. Last year, the House Republicans' campaign committee falsely called Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the first Dominican American in Congress and a U.S. citizen since 1965, "an illegal immigrant" after he gave the Democratic response to Trump's address in Spanish.
And taxpayers are paying for some of this messaging. The Department of Homeland Security launched a $200 million ad campaign featuring then-Secretary Kristi Noem telling undocumented immigrants to "leave now. If you don't, we will find you and we will deport you." Its ICE recruitment ads on Facebook and Instagram used "We'll Have Our Home Again," a song popular in neo-Nazi online spaces. But the people being detained don't match the story these ads tell. Even Rep. María Elvira Salazar, a Florida Republican, ran an ad last month pointing out that half of the roughly 50,000 people ICE detained in July had no criminal record.
None of this is new. Throughout history, our understanding of race and ethnicity has been shaped by political ads. During his campaign in 1976, Ronald Reagan popularized the myth of the "welfare queen," a coded image of a Black woman cheating the system. In 1988, a group supporting George H.W. Bush ran the "Willie Horton" ad, which used the mugshot of a Black man convicted of murder to paint Michael Dukakis as soft on crime. Two years later, Sen. Jesse Helms was trailing his Black challenger, Harvey Gantt, when he ran an ad showing a white man crumpling a job rejection letter because the job went to "a minority because of a racial quota." Helms won.
And these ads work. Ian Haney López, the author of Dog Whistle Politics, refers to it as the “the dark magic” that seduces middle-class voters to vote against their own economic interests. A study found that racially coded images in campaign ads made white viewers' racial attitudes play a bigger role in how they judged policies and candidates. By April, Republicans had already spent about $12 million on ads that attack Islam or Muslims, according to the ad tracking firm AdImpact.
The communities these ads target feel the impact: CAIR received a record 8,683 complaints of anti-Muslim discrimination in 2025, and in the 2024 election year, 53% of Asian American and Pacific Islander adults said they experienced an act of hate.
Political ads are paid for by both individuals and corporations, and spending is on track to reach a record $11.6 billion this cycle. This means candidates and their backers are paying to spread hostile messages that strengthen their campaigns. Most of these ads will be forgotten by next year. But the stereotypes they reinforce will outlast the election, and the communities they target will be the ones that pay the price. As you watch political ads this year, consider what stories they tell about certain people. How does racial bias shape how we see issues like the war on immigration or access to reproductive rights? And is the candidate promoting these messages the best person to represent you and your community?
Sources: The New Arab, Yellowhammer News, Nashville Banner, KJZZ, Texas Tribune, LAist, UnidosUS, DHS, The Intercept, NPR, Arkansas Advocate, TheGrio, Retro Report, PBS, CBS News, CNN, American Political Science Review, Stateline, CAIR, Stop AAPI Hate, CNBC.
