Another Republican strategist who has poll-tested the effectiveness of RINO messaging found “Liz Cheney Republican” may be just as effective for a stand-in when RINO gets old. | Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images
By David Siders
03/20/2022 07:01 AM EDT
In speeches, ads and on social media, it is fast becoming the defining smear of the 2022 primary campaign season: RINO.
The acronym — short for ‘Republican-In-Name-Only’ — is hardly new. But former President Donald Trump’s frequent use of the term has given it a new life, weaponizing a description once largely reserved for party moderates and turning it into a slur to be avoided at all costs.
The mushrooming of the insult is measurable. In 2018, during the last midterm election, RINO barely registered as a mention in TV ads, according to an analysis compiled for POLITICO by the ad tracking firm AdImpact. But so far in 2022, candidates have already spent more than $4 million on TV ads employing RINO as an attack, in races ranging from House and Senate contests to state House races.
That doesn’t include the raft of RINO-focused appeals appearing on social media and in mailers — or the “RINO Hunter” t-shirts worn by a group of far-right Republicans at a local GOP meeting in California’s Orange County earlier this year, with crosshairs in place of the “O.”
“It’s RINO season, and there’s no bag limit!” Nick Taurus, a long-shot House candidate, said on Twitter, where he posted a photo of the group.
“The intensity of it seems to grow...
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