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New Democratic Ad Campaign Ties G.O.P. to QAnon

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has started a $500,000 effort on television and online portraying House Republicans as aligned with Marjorie Taylor Greene and QAnon conspiracy theories.

As Republicans splinter over how to deal with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the QAnon devotee from Georgia who peddles an array of false conspiracy theories, Democrats are seizing on the infighting to make her the avatar for an array of G.O.P. lawmakers.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee on Tuesday began a $500,000 advertising campaign on television and online tying eight House Republicans, including Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the minority leader, to Ms. Greene and QAnon, an effort to force them to make a public affirmation about Ms. Greene.

“Congressman Don Bacon,” an ominous-sounding voice intones in the ad targeting the Nebraska Republican, “he stood with Q, not you.”

The strategy is similar to the one Republicans employed against Democrats last summer during the protests over racial injustice, when they sought to paint all Democrats as pushing to defund the police, including President Biden, who repeatedly said he did not favor it.

In releasing the QAnon-focused ads this week, Democrats are striking at a raw nerve in the Republican Party. Ms. Greene’s radical pronouncements — she indicated support for executing Democratic politicians several years ago — have alarmed even Republicans as well as Democrats. On Monday, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, said the “loony lies and conspiracy theories” embraced by Ms. Greene amounted to a “cancer” on the party.

Like the Republican ads that flooded the airwaves last year featuring grainy images of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic ads feature Ms. Greene and Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado, who has also expressed support for QAnon, as much as the candidates they are attacking.

“QAnon, a conspiracy theory born online, took over the Republican Party,” the ad’s narrator says, while images of Ms. Greene and Ms. Boebert flash on the screen. “Sent followers to Congress and, with Donald Trump, incited a mob that attacked the Capitol and murdered a cop.”

QAnon is a sprawling internet conspiracy theory that falsely alleges that the world is run by a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles who are plotting against former President Donald J. Trump.

Democrats in Washington have adopted Ms. Greene as the symbol of the post-Trump Republican Party, aiming to elevate her profile as part of an effort to divide the G.O.P. while seeking to force Republicans to vote on whether to allow her to remain on House committees. On Saturday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s press office issued a news release under the headline “Minority Leader McCarthy (̶G̶O̶P̶)̶ (QAnon) Embraces Marjorie Taylor Greene.”

Ms. Greene has used the fracas to raise money and emphasize her connection with Mr. Trump, essentially daring Mr. McCarthy to discipline her at the risk of alienating Mr. Trump and those among the party’s base voters who embrace his conspiracy theories. On Saturday, two days after Mr. McCarthy met with Mr. Trump in Florida, Ms. Greene tweeted that she too had spoken with the former president and that he had offered encouragement.

Mr. McCarthy is supposed to meet with Ms. Greene later this week, caught between Mr. Trump’s support for her and Mr. McConnell’s condemnation.

The new Democratic ads do not distinguish between Republicans who voted to overturn the Electoral College results and those who did not. Of the eight Republicans targeted, only Mr. McCarthy and Representatives Mike Garcia of California and Beth Van Duyne of Texas objected to Mr. Biden’s victory. Separate ads also target Mr. Bacon and Representatives Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Young Kim and Michelle Steel of California.

Each of the incumbents voted against impeaching Mr. Trump.

“Washington Republicans have made their choice — they chose to cave to the murderous Q-Anon mob that has taken over their party,” said Representative Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s chairman. “Their actions have made one thing clear — no American will be safe from the QAnon mob if Washington Republicans are in power.”

Reid J. Epstein covers campaigns and elections from Washington. Before joining The Times in 2019, he worked at The Wall Street Journal, Politico, Newsday and The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. More about Reid J. Epstein

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 13 of the New York edition with the headline: In New Ad Campaign, Democrats Aim to Tie Republicans to QAnon. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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