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David’s view The day Jeffrey Epstein died, I was at the Iowa State Fair hearing from presidential candidates, and he was not exactly on their minds. When left-wing podcasters asked 2020 hopefuls if they’d probe the circumstances of the convicted sex offender’s death, a few looked rattled. They’d prepped for so many questions, but not this. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. was an exception, questioning how a man on suicide watch could hang himself. She also had to explain, for some reporters, what she was talking about: “This was a sex trafficking scheme.” Voters no longer need refreshers on Epstein. Democrats have run hundreds of ads this cycle linking their opponents to the disgraced financier, worth tens of millions of dollars. I’m not the first take-slinger to ask whether this is the “Epstein election.” I’m here to answer with the reason why the message is working. This is the most expensive midterm election ever. We’ve witnessed the biggest donation in American history by one man (Elon Musk) to help one candidate (Ken Paxton). For the first time, off-year elections have attracted more cash than was spent to win the presidential race two years earlier. The very wealthy can spend unlimited sums on campaigns, and while plenty of candidates denounce this — “overturn Citizens United” will thrill the audience at any Democratic town hall — there’s no serious effort to pass a constitutional amendment that would shrink that voice. That’s where Epstein comes in. Many Americans are predisposed to think that wealthy people earned their money and that it’s churlish to try to take it away from them. But it’s easier than ever to argue that some ultra-wealthy people are strange, selfish, and even evil. Democrats, the GOP pollster Patrick Ruffini wrote this week, exploited the “conspiratorial, anti-system tendencies in the electorate” and found a much sharper weapon to swing at Republicans. If this pays off for Democrats, serious credit will be due to California Rep. Ro Khanna. As a co-chair of the 2020 Bernie Sanders campaign, he saw how clarifying it could be for audiences to hear that billionaires were hoarding wealth while most people struggled. After President Donald Trump promised to release Epstein case files but didn’t, Khanna and Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., found the votes to force it last year. The files didn’t take down the Trump presidency. But Khanna found a framework for anti-billionaire populism in battling the “Epstein class.” “The Epstein class has become a symbol [of] how the wealthy and powerful rig the system to avoid accountability and enrich themselves,” Khanna told me as he campaigned for the Democratic challenger in a Wisconsin seat Trump won by 5 points. This theme aligned with what Democrats wanted to do anyway: run against Republicans as pawns of the ultra-wealthy. Why wouldn’t the GOP slow data center construction? Billionaires. Why wasn’t Congress bringing down costs for regular people? Billionaires. When Trump was on the ballot, it helped Republicans that he was perceived as so wealthy that other billionaires couldn’t influence him. Democrats struggled to land the anti-plutocrat attacks that worked against Mitt Romney because prominent billionaires and corporate leaders refused to support Trump. That changed after Trump returned to power last year, and Democrats got comfortable again with populism. Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, who picked up the “Epstein class” term from Khanna, pointed to its presence at Trump’s inauguration: “They are the elites they pretend to hate.” If Democrats have a good Tuesday, their willingness to run against vast wealth and suggest that there’s something evil about it will have proven essential. “If you’re a billionaire, Ohio looks picture-perfect,” Ohio’s Amy Acton says in one of her final ads – one of several, from her allies, that go after GOP gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy for the crime of flying a private jet. And when former President Barack Obama headlined a Michigan rally with Abdul El-Sayed, an attendee shouted affirmation back at him: “Obama’s not on the Epstein files, either!” El-Sayed pointed and smiled at the man. He let the applause ring out. In this article: Room for Disagreement Republicans have some substantive rebuttals to this line of attack. Hadn’t the president jawboned other billionaires into funding child investment accounts? Wasn’t everyone invested in tech stocks getting richer? Not as rich as the people who had money already. In fact, the best counter to the anti-billionaire line has proven to be … turning it on Democrats. In Wisconsin, and other places where LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman has funded Democratic PACs, Republicans attacked Hoffman’s friendship with Epstein and asked why Democrats weren’t giving back his money. When Abdul El-Sayed fundraised with members of the Soros family, Republicans said his campaign trail rhetoric about money in politics was a ruse. Notable - Katie Phang, a journalist who’s sued DOJ over redactions in Epstein file releases, wrote in the Guardian about their impact on the elections. - Politico’s Playbook looked at whether you could call this the “Epstein election,” with Democratic strategists very happy that candidates adopted their “corruption” framing.
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