By: Eric Thomas
I watched 52 Kansas campaign commercials today so that you don’t have to.
Actually, for the next few weeks you will still be watching them. Whether you want them or not, they will still be on during the nightly news, college football games and re-runs of “Everybody Loves Raymond.”
If I can’t do you the favor of vaporizing the ads from your channels, let me give you a new way to think about them.
Let’s divide them into two buckets. The division won’t be about Democrat vs. Republican or state vs. local. The distinction will be about trust, because trust seems like an essential political ingredient this election.
One variety of ads uses “real people” — or the appearance of people who appear to be ordinary Kansans, even if they are paid actors. These ads use nearly anonymous cardboard cutouts of folks because we have otherwise become so skeptical of everything except for the apolitical people around us.
The second bucket uses political celebrities to do the exact opposite: sow distrust and animosity. Through messages packed with Washington elites or well-known Kansans, campaigns and PACs are trying to tear down their opposition.
To find the ads, I visited the Kansaspolitics YouTube channel, which has archived ads for state house, attorney general, governor and U.S. Senate races. Some gain trust in subtle ways, while others are screechingly obvious.
Most of the ads were standard fare. For 30 seconds, we hear a campaign, candidate or PAC argue for your vote. Usually, these ads would run on broadcast TV, but they likely appear on streaming platforms like YouTube.
(The Kansaspolitics channel also documents a political phenomenon that was new to me. A few ads extended past two minutes, notably Adam Hamilton’s response to an attack from the right that was posted to the channel at the end of September. There was also a 3 minute 14 second ad titled “Protecting our Farmers from Data Centers.” Call them what you will. Ads? Mini-docs? Campaign announcements? Social media content?)
The distrust election
At the end of last month, one national political reporter urged us to think about the 2026 election as the “distrust” election. Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times described how American trust in institutions has meaningfully eroded. Backed by longstanding polling from Gallup, Tavernise argues that our slumping faith in many things — the medical system, banks and Congress — will steer election results in November.
kepticism of national political candidates. Even loyally conservative Kansas has lost trust in President Trump, allowing a fall of 20 percentage points in his approval rating in the state as compared with his first term.
When Kansas threatens to elect its first Democratic senator since 1932, Republicans are experiencing a once-in-a-lifetime crisis of trust.
The idea of 2026 as a distrust election echoes through the ads I watched. While Tavernise hears distrust from the voters she met throughout the country, I saw it coloring Kansas political ads.
The good stuff
With Americans reluctant to trust, how do you conjure positive feelings in a possible Kansas voter for a candidate?
The answer, over and over again in the ads I watched, was surrounding the candidate with “real people.” When Americans trust few other things, we are left with, well, just folks.
Gallup polling reaching back to 1973 shows we trust fewer institutions. The ones that we do trust are barely hanging on. Big business is favorable among only 8% of Democrats and 32% of Republicans. So, no use boasting of the fortune you, the candidate, made as a business person.
Only 13% of Democrats and 22% of Republicans trust the criminal justice system a great deal or quite a lot. Grab your resume and cross off your work as a lawyer, judge or prosecutor.
Trust in organized labor has eroded to only 32% — and that is among Democrats. During the 1970s, a greater share of all Americans trusted labor unions than Democrats do now. No use appealing to union membership in your commercial.
The church, banking, police and public schools are the same: Less than 30% of either Democrats or Republicans nationally trust those institutions. With that, a political campaign has few visual symbols they can use to build a candidate’s image.
Nameless and often faceless people are the standard B-roll of almost every positive political advertisement. (The Kansaspolitics YouTube channel helpfully labels these as “pro-”, as in pro-Kris Kobach.) The goal is clearly to build trust with these anonymous, briefly seen maybe-Kansans.
Art of darkness
The counterpoint ads bring bleakness.
Conventional political wisdom apparently says that injuring the image of an opponent is as simple as associating him or her with distrust. And what is less trusted than Congress? (Spoiler alert: nothing.)
Gallup reports that the least-trusted American institution of all those they polled is Congress. I can’t even describe my embarrassment, on behalf of journalism, that newspapers and television news are only a few cumulative percentage points higher.
Nevertheless, Congress resides in the basement with less than 15% of all Americans, whether Republicans, independents or Democrats, trusting it a great deal or quite a lot. The distrust of national politicians becomes a cudgel against your opponent.
Attack ads exploit this by showing a rival candidate next to the most extreme personalities in Congress. In one ad, resembling a deranged art project, Adam Hamilton’s face is combined with one Democratic leader after another: Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “Two-Faced,” the ad concludes. “Too Extreme For Kansas.” It’s blunt — if bluntly untrue — but likely effective for some voters swayed by hinting at Hamilton’s associations with “extremists” and “radicals.”
To drain humanity from your rivals and their alleged political allies, the producers of the commercials de-saturate every Congressional or political face we are meant to loathe. This dark and gritty styling, when combined with selecting the least flattering moment possible, makes people look sinister.
Clicking through these 52 ads, I found either menacing attacks on Congressional trust or polished candidates with real people. During the last few weeks of campaigning before the mid-term election, there will likely be few ads in between.
In other words, there will be little viewers can trust.
Eric Thomas teaches visual journalism and photojournalism at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. He is the former director of the Jayhawk Media Workshop and former executive director of the Kansas Scholastic Press Association, a nonprofit that supports student journalism throughout the state.
