The invisible leaders: 2026 election ads blast Trump and AOC, ignore Johnson and Jeffries

Expect to see much more of President Trump, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in midterm ads this year than House Speaker Mike Johnson or Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, strategists in both parties tell Axios.

Why it matters: Billions of dollars will collectively be spent to elect Johnson or Jeffries as House speaker, but you probably won't even be able to tell by just watching the ads meant to achieve that goal.

• Neither congressional leader inspires the kind of partisan animosity that makes a politician the ideal attack ad bogeyman, according to party strategists working on House races.
• Instead, Trump likely will feature heavily in Democrats' attack ads, while Mamdani, AOC, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), former Vice President Kamala Harris and even California Gov. Gavin Newsom are likely to appear in negative spots run by Republicans.

Driving the news: An Axios review of ads on the tracking site AdImpact turned up just a handful of Republican ads run since last January that reference Jeffries (D-N.Y.).

• Derek Merrin, a GOP candidate in Ohio's 9th District, is running an ad that juxtaposes Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) with Jeffries and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), with a voice-over saying the district "doesn't need another politician."
• The National Republican Congressional Committee has been running an ad specifically targeting Jeffries, accusing him of plotting a "Project 2026" to "remake America" with left-wing policies.
• Axios was unable to find any Democratic ads this election cycle that make explicit reference to Johnson (R-La.).

Yes, but: Jeffries did emerge in political discourse on Monday in a different way.

• Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) is facing Democratic calls to resign after she said, "Yes, yes to that" in response to a radio host who said Jeffries should get his "cotton-picking hands off of Virginia."
• Kiggans, who later denied the suggestion that she agreed with the comment and said she does not condone it, is locked in one of the most competitive House races in the country.

Zoom out: Trump is nearly ubiquitous in Democratic ads, including those used against other Democrats in contested primaries.

• House Majority Forward, the nonprofit arm of House Democrats' main super PAC, makes repeated references to Trump in ads blasting vulnerable GOP incumbents on tariffs, Medicaid cuts and rising prices.

Between the lines: There is a storied history of political ad-makers trying to take down swing-district candidates by tying them to their party's congressional leaders.

• Pelosi was the prime example of this: She was an uber-popular Republican bogeyman as far back as 2006, before her first stint as speaker.
• But Jeffries and Johnson are both still somewhat new to their roles and have cultivated reputations of being inoffensive behind-the-scenes operators relative to the firebrands in their respective parties.
• A Democratic strategist also pointed to the fact that the party has explicitly hammered a message that casts Johnson as the "deputy speaker" playing second fiddle to Trump.