“Campaign ads have always had a loose association with the nuances of governance. But as the midterm elections tighten into dozens of battlegrounds across the country, a number of GOP ads are showing a breathtaking disregard for accuracy and clarity, with Republican candidates and their allies twisting tangential elements into baseless or misleading claims.
Donald Trump’s candidacy and presidency erased many of the traditional campaign guardrails in the GOP as Republicans adopted his approach of pushing fact-free arguments.
Jason Reifler, a political science professor who taught in Georgia and Illinois before joining the faculty at the University of Exeter in Britain, said Trump introduced a whole new level of lying in politics”