Republicans really can't quit Hillary. Yes, Hillary Clinton retired from electoral politics after losing the Electoral College to President Trump in 2016, but GOP candidates and allied groups keep on running against her. From Jan. 1 to April 24, Republicans ran 12,864 ads on TV mentioning Clinton or showing her photo, USA Today reports, citing data from Kantar Media's Campaign Media Analysis Group. More than 5,000 of those ads were from Ohio's GOP gubernatorial primary, and 3,751 were aired by Republicans running to face Sen. Joe Manchin (D) in West Virginia.
It isn't a bad strategy, says Jennifer Duffy at the Cook Political Report. "The end goal is to taint somebody as not conservative enough, and there are limited ways to do that." Other "unpopular" Democrats include former President Barack Obama, featured in 18,971 GOP ads this year, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who appears in 9,721 Republican ads. Luckily for Republicans, Pelosi said Tuesday she will run for House speaker if Democrats win the House this fall. ("It's important that it not be five white guys at the table, no offense," Pelosi told The Boston Globe.)
But if you live in a state where Trump won bigly in 2016, you can expect to see a lot of Clinton on your TV set this fall, Duffy told USA Today. Or you could stick with Netflix.
You can read Paul Waldman's theory about the GOP's Hillary strategy at The Week.