Voters in traditionally red states such as Kansas and Mississippi have been seeing a flood of ads from Democratic candidates focused on an issue Republicans (especially Donald Trump) would love to see disappear: Jeffrey Epstein, the late convicted sex trafficker who was best friends with Trump for decades.
Trump’s administration was supposed to release all of the Justice Department’s files regarding Epstein, but has dragged its feet and claimed that many of the most damaging records cannot be made public for various reasons that many experts say don’t hold water.
The campaign ads have brought back the Epstein issue front and center, which is bad news for Republicans, with The Washington Sun reporting, “More than 150 ads centered on Epstein have aired nationwide during the 2026 election cycle, according to a review by The Washington Sun. They began playing primarily in ‘toss up’ districts and states across the country but increasingly are being deployed in states and districts that Trump won two years ago, often by wide margins.”
Those ads have been a major headache for GOP candidates who are trying to distance themselves from Trump’s dismal approval ratings and controversial foreign policy and economic policies that have led to runaway inflation.
Desperate to woo back voters, some Republicans are trying to directly refute that they are part of the problem and the apparent coverup being committed by the administration.
“In the final weeks of the 2026 election, Rep. Ashley Hinson, a Republican running for Senate in Iowa, began running a direct-to-camera television ad with a startling message,” HuffPost notes.
“This week, I had to explain to my boys, ‘No, mom does not protect pedophiles,’ Hinson says in the ad.”
Texas Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton has seen his polling numbers fade as his connection to a sex abuse scandal has also become fodder for campaign ads that could shift voters away from the GOP nominee.
“An ad from Senate Majority PAC, a super PAC backing Democrats, goes after Texas Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton for giving Adam Hoffman, who was accused of sexually abusing his son’s friend from the ages of 6 to 10, a deal that allowed him to plead guilty to misdemeanors and be sentenced to 29 days in prison, including time served, and kept him off the sex offender registry. The ad notes that Hoffman’s case was represented by the same lawyer who separately represented Nate Paul, one of “Paxton’s biggest donors,” and characterized the situation as an “Epstein-style deal to let a pedophile walk free.”
With the election now less than two weeks away, $70 million is being poured into ads mentioning Epstein across several battleground states, and that could well spell the difference in who holds power once the votes are tabulated, proving that even from beyond the grave, Jeffrey Epstein remains toxic for Republicans and could eventually result in Donald Trump being removed from office.
