Oklahoman Asks: Will The Negative Ads Work?
ANALYSIS: Will U.S. Senate campaign ‘gamble’ pay off?
The group supporting state Rep. T.W. Shannon for the U.S. Senate was likely to turn negative first. The idea that Shannon could be the candidate who could pull off a first-round victory was far-fetched.
by Chris Casteel
WASHINGTON — The dark-money group backing state Rep. T.W. Shannon for the U.S. Senate made a necessary gamble with its negative ads and mail about U.S. Rep. James Lankford.
After a burst of momentum that followed Shannon’s first advertising blitz and out-of-state celebrity endorsements, the race to replace U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn settled into the day-to-day grind, and hundreds of ads portraying Shannon a Christian conservative were only going to go so far.
Oklahoma political veterans predicted weeks ago that an outside group — there is also one backing Lankford that, so far, has been even less transparent than the one backing Shannon — would go negative as soon as it looked like their man could lose without a run-off.
It was always likely to be Shannon backers who turned negative first. The idea that Shannon could be the candidate who could pull off a first-round victory was far-fetched given Lankford’s strong political base in Oklahoma County, which is absolutely crucial in Republican primaries.