Case Study: Representative Chris Murphy

Connecticut's Fifth District

Chris Murphy entered the 2006 campaign as the least likely of the three contested Connecticut House races to win. Nancy Johnson had proven herself time and again a fierce and formidable campaigner able to raise millions of dollars and never afraid to go on the attack. At the same time, she had been in office for 24 years with significant Democratic support due to her moderate stand on issues.

Johnson's strategy was simple: disqualify Murphy before he knew what hit him. She attacked early and often, swamping Murphy with negative ads intended to define him on Johnson's terms.

Our research, however, was clear that voters were tiring of Johnson but would still give her the benefit of the doubt. We realized that strong negative attacks on her would backfire, even attacks on an issue like her support for the war in Iraq.

Despite being significantly outspent, we were forced to go on the air earlier than we wanted. Johnson's first attack against Murphy on taxes was something we knew we'd need to respond to. However, our approach met with much skepticism among party leaders who felt we needed to be much tougher with Johnson. We trusted our research and our instincts and stuck to our game plan.

Our first ad was a response ad but, instead of making it defensive on taxes, we used the ad to introduce Chris and highlight our strong point: his character. We portrayed him as the new young blood we need and used Johnson's attacks as an example of how Washington's changed her and she's no longer listening to the people of Connecticut.

We attacked Johnson plenty, but we did it with a lighter touch. In one of the closing ads, Murphy even says, "She's not a bad person, but she's become part of the problem."

We played up the contrast between young, energetic fresh-faced Murphy and Johnson who's been in Washington for 24 years. We also put Murphy to camera as much as possible to play up our best asset. Most importantly, we never allowed Johnson to get us off our message and our strategy and they were reflected, one way or another, in every ad we ran.

In the end, Murphy won by 12 points, a margin that surprised almost everyone. Of the other two Connecticut House races, one Democrat squeaked through by a point and the other lost.