TOP TEN WORST POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS OF THE 2010's

With the 2010’s coming to a close Republicans and Democrats alike will be searching for answers on how to win in the 2020s. While both parties claimed massive victories during the decade, each party also endured nightmarish campaigns that not only cost their party chance to win a winnable seat, but also damaged their national brand. Below are the ten worst national political campaigns from the past decade.

10. Christine O’Donnell- There was nothing that could have prepared Delaware voters for the disaster that was Christine O’Donnell in 2010. O’Donnell’s comments on witch craft, masturbation, and the separation of church and state not only torpedoed her campaign, but also made her a national laughingstock. O’Donnell was the Republican candidate for Senator in Delaware’s 2010 election. Despite having unsuccessfully run for public office twice before, O’Donnell managed to defeat fellow Republican and nine-term U.S Representative Michael Castle in the Republican primary. Almost immediately after O’Donnell’s victory, comedian Bill Maher released a video from his show Politically Incorrect where O’Donnell, as a guest in 1999, stated that she had “dabbled into witchcraft.” After receiving widespread attention for her comments, O’Donnell then released perhaps the worst political ad of the entire decade where she declared “I'm not a witch, I’m you” No candidate can recover from a statement like that. O’Donnell continued to stumble her way through several more controversies before eventually losing to Democrat Chris Coons in the general election. Prior to the witch craft revelations O’Donnell had held a slight lead over Coons. Bill Maher would later apologize  to O’Donnell for releasing the tapes, but O’Donnell’s political career never recovered.

9.       Scott Walker- Scott Walker seemed like a solid Presidential contender in early 2015. He had won three elections as the Governor of Wisconsin in the past five years, including a recall election, and was a conservative darling. In the early stages of the 2015 campaign, Walker secured support from wealthy donors including the Koch brothers and the Ricketts family. Additionally, Walker led Donald Trump in Iowa polls as late as August 2015. Unfortunately for Walker, this would mark the high-water for his campaign. Believing that Iowa would be his stepping stone to the nomination, Walker invested a large sum of money into growing his campaign infrastructure in the state. Establishing such a large infrastructure would mean that Walker had to greatly increase his fundraising in order to pay his large force of staffers. Instead of rising to the occasion, Walker immediately folded. Walker, while still leading in the Iowa polls, made the bone-headed proposal that a border wall be built between the U.S. and Canada. People derided Walker’s proposal as opportunist, desperate, and not rooted in reality. As he began to slip in the polls, Walker’s team became unorganized and lost major donors like the Ricketts family. Within six weeks of being the front-runner in Iowa, Walker exited the race. In just a matter of weeks, Walker went from being a legitimate front-runner to being out of the race due to his team’s own failures. Walker would go onto lose his reelection in Wisconsin in 2018 and he has not announced any intention to run for public office again.

8.       Alexi Giannoulias- Illinois is generally infertile ground for Republicans on the national level. A socially moderate/fiscally conservative Republican can win, but they need to face a seriously flawed Democratic candidate. In 2010, Democratic Senatorial nominee Alexi Giannoulias carried so many flaws and was so inept that Republican Mark Kirk defeated him by 1.6% margin. Giannoulias, at the time Illinois’ State Treasurer, was only 34 years old, but carried a large amount of baggage. Giannoulias was connected to the ill-fated Broadway Bank, which was founded by his father. Giannoulias had built his campaign upon the successes of the bank, and made it the centerpiece of his campaign. However, the bank eventually became his downfall due to its aggressive loan policies and controversial dividends. Giannoulias’ family had taken $30 million in dividends just prior to the financial collapse in 2007-2008. The family bank would go on to fold in 2010, in the middle of Giannoulias’ Senate campaign. Voters were incensed that Giannoulias and his family had profited from the financial crisis while many others had gone bankrupt due to the bank’s high-risk loans. Giannoulias continued to struggle throughout the campaign and could not even capitalize on Mark Kirk’s own numerous unforced errors. Giannoulias would go on to lose the Senate race and his family would later be order to pay a much too low settlement in the amount of $5 million for their involvement in the financial crisis

7.       Arthur Jones- Arthur Jones is a Nazi who somehow made it onto the ballot as the 2018 Republican nominee for Illinois’ Third Congressional District. Jones is a Holocaust denier, saluted anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan, and was a guest speaker at a KKK event. It got so bad for Jones, that local Republicans and the national Republican party denounced his candidacy and encouraged fellow Republicans not to vote for him. Sadly, Jones still garnered 26.5% of the vote in the 2018 election where he was defeated by Democrat Dan Lipinski. Jones is a serial candidate and it is possible that we have not yet heard the last of him running for public office.

6.       Beto O’Rourke- After Beto O’Rourke’s narrow defeat at the hands of Ted Cruz in Texas’ 2018 Senatorial race, it seemed all but a given that not only would he run for president, but that he would be a threat to win the nomination. Instead O’Rourke became a punch line. O’Rourke was undisciplined throughout his campaign which was exemplified by his promise to take away America’s AR-15s. O’Rourke’s “Hell yes, we're going to take your AR-15” line during the September, 2019, Democrat Debate presented an opportunity for him, but he flubbed it completely. After his initial comments, O’Rourke seemed completely unprepared or unwilling to talk about how he would actually implement the policy. No rational person would believe that the vast majority of the approximately 100 million U.S. gun owners would simply walk over to their local police station and hand over their guns. O’Rourke, however, inexplicably made this very argument and refused to acknowledge that a police confiscation would be necessary. These comments made O’Rourke an easy target for rivals, including Pete Buttigieg, who continuously siphoned off donors and support from O’Rourke. Too many times, O’Rourke stumbled, from his bungled campaign roll out to his statement that religious institutions should lose their tax exempt status for opposing gay marriage. O’Rourke constantly backtracked and his efforts were met with mockery. By the end of his campaign O’Rourke had become more of a gimmick than a serious candidate. After dropping out of the race in November 2019, O’Rourke faces an uncertain political future just one year after looking like a rising star in the Democratic party.

5.       Bruce Braley- In Iowa, farming is king. Every four years prospective presidential candidates descend on the state to promote their pro-farmer policies. Despite living in Iowa, however, Democratic Senatorial candidate Bruce Braley apparently forgot that Iowa voters don’t take kindly to someone criticizing Iowa farmers. Braley, in Iowa’s 2014 Senatorial race, infamously attacked Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley as “a farmer from Iowa, who never went to law school.” Republican candidate Joni Ernst pounced on these comments and later released her famous castration ad which promised to cut wasteful spending and highlighted Ernst’s farming roots. Ernst’s ad could not have created a starker contrast between herself and Braley. Iowa voters seemingly had a choice between a down to earth farmer and military veteran, or an elitist trial lawyer. Braley further dug himself into a hole by releasing a debatably sexist ad against Ernst and faced more bad publicity for an alleged dispute with a neighbor over chickens. Put together, Braley became more known for his gaffes than for any of his work as a four-term Congressman. Ernst would go onto defeat Braley in the 2014 Senate race by a 52.1%-43.8% margin and Braley has not held elected office since.

4.       Sharron Angle- Sharron Angle was the Nevada Republican nominee for Senator in 2010, where she faced then-Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid. Although the race was certainly winnable for Angle, she was yet another Tea Party-aligned candidate who spectacularly flamed out due to her own unenforced errors. In the early 2010s the Tea Party movement was a powerful ideology within the Republican Party. Angle was one of the Tea Party candidates whose campaign was a train wreck from the very beginning. She was derided as an ultra-right winger and several Republicans refused to endorse her. These Republicans were vindicated when Angle told Tea Party supporters that “Sharia Law” law had taken over the cities of Dearborn, Michigan, and “Frankford, Texas,” and that these locations represented a “militant terrorist situation.” For reference Frankford, Texas does not actually exist (the town was incorporated into Dallas in 1975), and Angle’s comments received heavy backlash from pundits and Democrats.

Angle was further bogged down by her alleged link to Scientology and her bizarre assertion that the September 11th attackers entered the U.S. through Canada. Angle didn’t need any more controversy, but she again found it when she posted a TV ad that was called racist by pundits and several politicians. Heavily wounded by her own errors, Angle would lose to Harry Reid by a 50.3% to 44.6% margin and would never run for public office again.

3.       Richard Mourdock- Indiana Republican Richard Mourdock was on the cusp of success. After defeating a little known military veteran named Pete Buttigieg to win reelection in Indiana’s State Treasurer race in 2010, Mourdock set his sights higher. In 2012, he announced his intention to run against six-term, incumbent Republican Senator Richard Lugar in Indiana’s 2012 Republican Primary. Mourdock would go on to pull off a dramatic upset win against Lugar and appeared set to be Indiana’s next Senator. A social and fiscal Conservative, Mourdock had a penchant for outrageous comments and policy views. Fox News, the NRA and various Tea Party groups continuously propped him up.

Mourdock was a thorn in the side of establishment Republicans from the very beginning. He drew the ire of 2012 Vice Presidential nominee, Paul Ryan, when he stated that he would refuse to take part in any bipartisan proposals or compromises.  His outlandish comments finally caught up to him on October 23, 2012. In a debate with Democratic candidate Joe Donnelly, Mourdock claimed that rape is an act of God. These comments set off a firestorm that derailed Mourdock’s campaign. Many national Republican groups stopped spending money on behalf of Mourdock and his campaign sputtered leading up to election day. Mourdock refused to apologize for his beliefs, and was often compared to fellow Republican and Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin who had made a similarly outrageous comment about rape. The constant stream of bad publicity and Mourdock’s refusal to apologize made him too toxic for many Indiana voters to touch. Donnelly would go onto defeat Mourdock by about 6% in the general election despite Indiana’s traditionally red hue. Mourdock would continue to serve as Indiana Treasurer until he resigned in 2014.

2.       Roy Moore- How, in 2017, could a Republican lose a race for Senator in Alabama? Roy Moore, managed to provide the perfect blueprint for how to do so. Democrat Doug Jones defeated Moore in a 2017 Special Election for Senator to replace Jeff Sessions. Already a controversial figure in Alabama before he became the Republican nominee, Moore faced several allegations of sexual misconduct and assault. While in his thirties, Moore had pursued several relationships with underage girls. Several of these girls alleged that Moore had sexually assaulted them. Almost all Republicans, with the notable exception of Donald Trump, urged Moore to drop out of the race but to no avail. Combined with his dismissal from the federal judiciary for defying a Federal Court Order to remove the Ten Commandments from Alabama’s state judicial building and his ties to white supremacists, Moore’s name was political poison. He was likely the only Republican in Alabama who could have lost the Senate seat and he managed to pull off the seemingly impossible. Democrat Doug Jones, a former federal prosecutor, defeated Moore by about a 2% margin and cemented Moore’s place in infamy. Despite his defeat, Moore has stated that he will once again run for Alabama Senator in 2020 and it is very possible that he has a path to the nomination.

1.       Hillary Clinton- The granddaddy of them all when it comes to inept campaigns. Clinton’s campaign, run by John Podesta, was an absolute disaster from the start. Little needs to be said about Clinton’s handling of her emails, “basket of deplorables” comments, and getting plain outworked by Donald Trump. Clinton failed to control the narrative of the campaign from the beginning and she was constantly playing catch-up policy wise with Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. The campaign failures began early with Clinton and never ceased throughout the campaign. Donald Trump attacked Clinton as having entered into the much-maligned Iran nuclear deal, despite Clinton having nothing to do with the negotiations (John Kerry was actually in charge). Instead of pointing this out, Clinton mind-bogglingly embraced the notion that she was responsible for the deal. By the end of the election, Clinton had played into Republican hands and was blamed for every negative U.S. foreign policy from the last 25 years.

Quite often, Clinton’s team also pulled resources or money out of a state prior to its primary, but would then go on to lose. This happened in Indiana, where she pulled out funding only to lose Indiana to Bernie Sanders. She constantly attacked Donald Trump’s weaknesses, such as his disgusting "grab em by the pussy" comments, but failed to decisively attack his strengths. Many voters chose Trump for his business record and “drain the swamp” policies. Clinton did not spend enough time attacking Trump on these things. The list goes on and on for her campaign’s failures in 2016. Clinton’s campaign was an inept catastrophe that will be talked about for years to come and was by far the biggest campaign mistake of the decade.