The targets and costs of deceptive political ads

President Donald Trump greets supporters as he arrives on the stage at the Republican convention Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

By Rich Moniak

The dust has barely settled on last week’s humiliating rejection of Donald Trump’s Republican Party and pundits across the country are already speculating about who is going to run for president in 2028. And looking over their shoulders is an industry drooling at the prospect of being part of the next round of record-breaking campaign spending.

In a column two weeks ago, Larry Presily aptly blasted political campaigns as being “obscenely expensive, intrusive, insulting and painfully long.” And he justifiably complained about the “Outside interests” offering advice voters “don’t need or want.”

But to understand why the campaigns and public action committees play that dirty game requires looking first at the constant stream of consumer-related advertising that’s carefully crafted to be ambiguous without being transparently deceptive.

Most people are aware that federal law prohibits false advertising. It’s enforced by the  Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which “has a broad mandate to protect consumers from fraud and deception in the marketplace.”

The commission’s current policy statement regarding deception was published in 1983. It relies heavily on “the perspective of a reasonable consumer,” which excludes people who, “because of ignorance or incomprehension, may be misled by even a scrupulously honest claim.”

However, advertisers are expected to recognize that because reasonable consumers “may glance only at the headline,” the fine print and disclosures elsewhere in an ad are “insufficient to correct a misleading representation.”

But consider this 30-second KIA spot. It’s one of thousands of examples that’s intended to appeal entirely to a viewer’s emotions. The objective is less about promoting the car’s performance and features than competing for attention in a marketplace swarming with uninformative ads across multiple mediums that didn’t exist when the FTC’s policy about deception was established.

During the past 30 years, advertising industry revenue in the U.S. has more than quadrupled. It currently employs approximately 200,000 people. The annual median salary is $94,000. That’s a lot of human resources earning a decent wage to tell us almost nothing.

Although FTC regulations don’t apply to political campaigns, the same advertising strategies are used in political campaigns. And in really competitive races like one between Sen. Dan Sullivan and Mary Peltola, the spending targets the exact kind of people the FTC regulations aren’t intended to protect. Voters whose ignorance of the prominent issues surrounding the election are the easiest to deceive.

That’s especially true the closer we get to Election Day. It’s when the “loudest, most abusive and frequently dishonest messages” that angered Persily start hitting the airwaves and overloading our mailboxes.

Some of this isn’t new. Candidates have been making promises they can’t keep, embellishing their resumes and accomplishments, and leveling unsubstantiated accusations against their opponents for decades. Only now the level and nature of deceit is getting rapidly worse with every advance in computer technology.

This year, Vivek Ramasamy, the Republican candidate for governor of Ohio, released one of the most dishonest and disgusting campaign ads ever produced. It drew condemnations across the political spectrum.

President Donald Trump wasn’t offended by it, though. Dishonesty that benefits him or members of his party never does. That’s why he agreed to create an ad for Sullivan masked as an official White House announcement.

About a month before the election, Gov. Mike Dunleavy, and Rep. Nick Begich III joined them and several cabinet members in the Oval Office to tell the news media that the South Korean government had committed to investing $54 billion in the Alaska LNG pipeline project. Trump said it would immediately create up to 12,000 construction jobs and reduce annual energy costs for Alaska households by $1,500 to $2,200.

Alaskans who routinely get their news from reliable sources would quickly learn it was a hoax. But Trump and Sullivan were only trying to fool the least informed Alaskan voters.

In politics, the most deceptive ads are designed to be effective at the margins. Their creators know they’ll never be held accountable. The job pays well, especially for those credited with fooling the most voters. And the blatant lying at the highest levels of our government makes it even easier for them to justify.

Meanwhile, someone has to pay the bill for all the dishonest content they produce. And that means members of Congress will spend a lot of time raising money for their reelection campaigns instead doing the work we elected them to do.

• Rich Moniak is a Juneau resident and retired civil engineer with more than 25 years of experience working in the public sector.