GOP eases off strategy of hitting health care law

WASHINGTON -- Republicans seeking to unseat the Senate incumbent in North Carolina have cut in half the portion of their top-issue ads citing President Barack Obama's health care law.

The shift -- also taking place in competitive states such as Arkansas and Louisiana -- shows Republicans are easing off their strategy of criticizing Democrats over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act now that many Americans are benefiting from the law and the measure is less likely to be repealed.

"The Republican Party is realizing you can't really hang your hat on it," said Andrew Taylor, a political science professor at North Carolina State University. "It just isn't the kind of issue it was."

The party had been counting on anti-health care sentiment to spur Republican turnout in its quest for a U.S. Senate majority, just as the issue did when the party took the House in 2010. This election is the first since the law was fully implemented.

Now, Republicans are seeking a new winning formula, with the midterm election less than three months away. Republican pollster Whit Ayres said the party is pausing to reframe the ads by tying the health law to the economy and jobs, the top concerns for most Americans.

"Obamacare will not be the most important issue," and Republicans will have to "target people very directly" with their messages, said Ayres, who co-wrote a memo this month to outside spending groups such as Crossroads GPS and the American Action Network after he tested 57 possible avenues of attack.

Ayres said another round of health-care ads may drop next month when premium increases take effect after state regulators finish negotiating with insurers on 2015 rates, he said.

"Obamacare remains of serious concern," his memo said, "garnering significant opposition among Republicans and widespread criticism among independents, who are suspicious of the law's Washington-driven approach."

Still, the party's experience across the country shows that Republicans can't count on the issue to motivate independent voters they need to oust Democrats in Arkansas, Louisiana and Alaska. And in North Carolina, the ads being run against Sen. Kay Hagan also underline the limits of the health-care law as a political topic.

Republicans have accused Hagan of casting the deciding vote on the law, when it passed in 2010 and became Obama's biggest legislative initiative.

In April, anti-health care advertising dwarfed all other spots in North Carolina. It accounted for 3,061, or 54 percent, of the 5,704 ads on the top five issues in North Carolina, according to Kantar Media's Campaign Media Analysis Group.

By July, the numbers had reversed, with anti-health care ads accounting for 971, or 27 percent, of the top issue ads, and the budget, government spending, jobs and unemployment accounting for 2,608, or 72 percent, of such ads, Campaign Media Analysis Group data show.

"It is a recognition that there's more going on in this state and also nationally than just frustration over Obamacare," said Jordan Shaw, the campaign manager for Hagan's Republican challenger, Thom Tillis. "We have never had an approach to make this campaign all about the Affordable Care Act. You can't have a conversation about Obamacare without talking about its impact on the economy."

The Republican approach, long defined by a "repeal and replace" mantra, is also challenged by a policy void, said Jennifer Duffy, a Senate analyst at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. "You can't really repeal it without creating a mess," she said, "and the problem is they're not entirely sure what to replace it with."

In another reflection of the party's efforts to put its campaign against the health law in a broader context, the House voted last month to sue Obama over its implementation. House Republicans said the president exceeded his constitutional powers in delaying one of the measure's central requirements on his own, without a vote of Congress.

The situation is much the same in Arkansas, where Mark Pryor is trying to keep his Senate seat, and Louisiana, where Mary Landrieu is in a tight race for a fourth term. The health law was just about the only issue on the air in Louisiana in April, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group. By July, it had dropped to 41 percent of the top five issue ads, and in Arkansas just 23 percent.

In North Carolina, the ads have diminished as insurance coverage has expanded. About 581,000 people in the state had signed up for private plans under the law by April, 54 percent of the potential market, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit research group.

Nationwide, the health care act has exceeded enrollment projections since March since its troubled website has been fixed. Premiums in the insurance marketplaces are expected to increase only modestly in most states, and the percentage of uninsured Americans has dropped significantly, said Drew Altman, president of the Kaiser Family Foundation.

"When they righted the ship, it no longer was as effective a weapon to use to hit Democrats over the head with," he said.

Information for this article was contributed by Alex Wayne of Bloomberg News.

A Section on 08/20/2014

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