WASHINGTON – Democrats have found the star of their midterm advertising campaigns: Jeffrey Epstein, the most notorious sex predator in American history, onetime close friend of President Donald Trump and a man who has been dead since 2019.

In key races around the country, Democrats are resurrecting Epstein to put him on voters’ screens and slam Republicans. The leading GOP candidate for governor in Wisconsin “blocked an effort to release the Epstein files, protecting child abusers and rapists,” per an ad airing in the Badger State. Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff’s campaign in Georgia has a police sergeant on air condemning his Republican opponent for having “protected powerful elites instead of our children.” Former Sen. Sherrod Brown’s comeback bid in Ohio is relentlessly focused on his opponent’s ties to a top Epstein associate.

Eights months since Congress nearly unanimously voted to release the Epstein files — a step Republicans dearly hoped would end a conspiracy-theory saga that damaged Trump’s relationship with his MAGA base — Epstein is popping up in paid media in swing states. And Democratic strategists say it’s not going to stop anytime soon.

“It shows that they care more about what they think helps them politically than about actually protecting people,” said Margie Omero, a Democratic pollster at GBAO Strategies. “To be soft on Jeffrey Epstein is a pretty terrible position. It’s not a position a lot of Americans share.”

The attack works on multiple levels for Democrats: suggesting their opponents do not care about keeping kids safe, highlighting the ongoing corruption at the Justice Department and reminding voters about how the Trump administration has protected elites — or what some Democrats have taken to calling the “Epstein Class.”

“What is clearer proof that you are a Trump yes-man than taking a vote to protect pedophiles?” Omero asked.

Republicans targeted by the ads are greeting them with a mixture of disdain and finger-pointing. All of them eventually voted to release the files, though most Republicans in the House voted against one earlier Democratic procedural gambit to force the Justice Department to release its files.

“What it is is desperation,” said Rep. Tom Tiffany, the GOP candidate for governor in Wisconsin targeted by an ad. “They don’t have anything to run on. They have no policy agenda to share with the people of Wisconsin that are going to benefit them.”

Other Republicans are trying to push back by highlighting Democrats’ ties to Epstein, often tying them to LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, a major Democratic donor who has acknowledged twice visiting Epstein’s private island but has otherwise denied wrongdoing.

In response to the ad attacking him, Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.), Ossoff’s challenger, told HuffPost through a spokesperson that “Ossoff remains focused on spreading misinformation and smear campaigns with money given to him by Epstein associates.”

The potential release of the files, pushed by Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), paralyzed the Trump White House, which knew the files repeatedly mentioned the president. Following their leader, virtually every Republican opposed releasing the files until it became clear the Epstein Files Transparency Act was going to pass.

Republican Reps. Nancy Mace (S.C.), Lauren Boebert (Colo.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) joined Massie and all House Democrats in signing a “discharge petition,” which, once it got 218 signatures, forced a vote that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) couldn’t prevent from happening. Every House member except Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) voted for the bill in November, and then it passed the Senate unanimously, without senators even taking a vote.

A handful of Republicans also provided momentum for Epstein transparency in other ways. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee moved to subpoena the Justice Department for the Epstein files last summer, and three Republicans on the committee voted yes.

The committee’s chair, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), dutifully issued the subpoenas, and the committee began obtaining and releasing damaging material before the Justice Department was forced by statute to create its publicly searchable “Epstein Library.” Comer later went even further by sending a subpoena to Epstein’s estate, ultimately confirming Trump had indeed written a creepy birthday note to Epstein.

Still, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the oversight committee’s top Democrat, said it’s “very fair” to say Republicans opposed releasing the files.

“We’ve had to force votes, we’ve had to put in subpoenas, we have to put in legislation. With the exception of Tom Massie and maybe a couple others, I think Republicans have, by and large, have supported the president, calling it a hoax, dismissing survivors, and the DOJ still hasn’t released half the files,” Garcia told HuffPost.

“I’m glad that folks like Sen. Ossoff and others are using it,” Garcia said. “From what we’ve seen in research data, it’s one of the most bipartisan things in the country, and it’s one of Donald Trump’s absolute worst issues, because people understand that it is a cover-up.”

The political campaign fight over Epstein has been going on the longest in Ohio, where former Sen. Brown, who’s trying to claw his way back into the Senate, has released three ads attacking GOP Sen. Jon Husted for having received thousands in campaign contributions from Les Wexner, a billionaire who retained Epstein as his financial manager until 2007.

“Husted’s taken over $116,000 from one of Epstein’s closest friends and co-conspirators, and last year took a maximum donation from him just weeks before voting to block the release of the Epstein files,” one ad’s narrator says.

Despite their relationship, Wexner has not been implicated in any of Epstein’s crimes, though the FBI did once label him a “co-conspirator.” Husted received a $3,500 campaign donation from Wexner late in 2025; in September, Senate Republicans voted down a motion to call up a bill forcing the Justice Department to release more files.

Husted said the ad’s not fair, since he supported the Senate passing the Epstein Files Transparency Act when the chamber approved the legislation by unanimous consent in November.

“I voted to make the Epstein files public,” Husted told HuffPost. “And the comments that are being made about it is just a complete and total lie.”

Democratic strategists said basically every Republican House member running for reelection or higher office should expect paid advertising targeting them over the files, and also pointed to Senate races in New Hampshire — where Republican John Sununu’s apparent ties to Epstein are under scrutiny — and Texas as places that could also see Epstein-centric attacks.

The politicization of Epstein can be upsetting to his victims.

“We have said all along that this is not a political issue, because it’s not,” Liz Stein, who has said she was sexually assaulted and trafficked by Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, told HuffPost. “There are Epstein survivors from both political parties, and it’s a crime. It’s a crime of sex trafficking, but it has had so much political emotion infused into it where it really doesn’t belong.”

Stein and other Epstein survivors lobbied Congress to pass the transparency law, and she’s urged senators not to confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general because of how the Justice Department has failed to release all its documents and failed to redact victims’ names from some of the documents it did release.

Without getting into a specific ad or candidate, Stein suggested she didn’t love how the case is now being used.

“When politicians are using this case to point out facts, to educate the public as to what has gone wrong, that feels incredibly supportive,” she said. “But when politicians are using this because it’s a current headline, it feels exploitative all over again.”

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