Republicans have run ads against Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi 34,000 times in the past month alone

Republicans all over the country are uniting around two common enemies: Hillary Clinton and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Pelosi may only be up for re-election in her northern California congressional district, but that hasn't stopped Republican campaigns and political groups from airing her face thousands of times in political ads over the past 30 days, reports Politico. Perennial GOP boogey-woman Hillary Clinton has joined Pelosi as a co-star in many of these ads, despite not running for any public office.

All told, Pelosi and Clinton have been featured in close to 100 ads that have aired more than 34,000 times in the past month, Politico's analysis found. Republican campaigns and organizations have thrown $28.4 million into the anti-Pelosi and anti-Clinton political messaging in the last 30 days. The ads deride Democratic candidates as "Hillary-supporting" and in favor of Pelosi's radical "San Francisco values," and tie Clinton's "liberal Hollywood elitist" pals to candidates everywhere from Nevada to West Virginia.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The practice is nothing new — GOP operatives return to the strategy year after year because it's effective. Republicans "are genetically predisposed to detest Nancy Pelosi, and Hillary is not far behind," GOP strategist Ana Navarro said. But others worry that the attack ads may not strike the right tone in a year with a record number of female candidates and an unprecedented gender gap that forecasts a strong shift left among women. Democrats like Sue Dvorsky, former Iowa Democratic Party chair, thinks it will backfire. "We've got 30,000 women running nationwide and they're still running against Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton," she said. "Is that the best they've got?" Read more at Politico.