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Anthony Constantino's opponent wouldn't debate him. So the Republican congressional candidate did the only reasonable thing in the circumstances—and debated a chicken instead.
It wasn't a real chicken, because clearly that would have been ridiculous. It was a Constantino staffer in an inflatable chicken suit, sharing a stage with a horse skeleton and answering questions with prerecorded clips of the absent Democrat, Blake Gendebien. The October 24 "Pumpkin Rally" also featured, naturally, a wall of pumpkins.
For more than half a century, right up to the latest Midterms, candidates have corralled an impressive range of creatures to help them win office: rats, bears, pigs, parrots, monkeys, alligators, cows, and the odd mythical beast. There have been allegations involving Bigfoot erotica, ads about monkeys on cocaine, and commercials in which sharks fall from the sky.
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Constantino, narrowly ahead as of writing in a rare ray of light in the GOP gloom, may not regret his choice of species, even though the chicken has the worst electoral record of any animal in American politics. We know this because Newsweek has kept score, though it might not survive a statistical autopsy.
It's tempting to see all this as the debasement of the national conversation, a repeated allegation during the now-deceased Trump era of politics. Except for one thing: mockery is a cornerstone of democracy. The freedom to laugh at one's opponent is not enjoyed in many of the world's authoritarian states. In China, censors began deleting social media images comparing Xi Jinping to Winnie the Pooh in 2017. The following year, Disney's Christopher Robin was refused a Chinese release. So as today's results are digested, and the "lame duck" Trump political obituaries are written, let's celebrate America's political zoo, starting at the bottom of the table.
The Chicken: Played Five, Lost Five
The chicken's losing streak began in 2014. In Colorado, Democrat Irv Halter faced three men in chicken suits at a mock debate after Republican Doug Lamborn refused to show. Lamborn won. In Iowa, Democrat Bruce Braley ran an ad featuring a baby chick to suggest voters had barely heard a peep from Joni Ernst about spending. Ernst won. In Minnesota, Republican Mike McFadden's campaign staged a chicken-costume protest against Al Franken at the state fair. Franken won.
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In 2022, South Carolina Democrat Joe Cunningham brought a live chicken to a press conference to protest Governor Henry McMaster's reluctance to debate, naming it Little Henrietta McMaster. Arizona Republican Kari Lake held up a fake security-camera image of someone in a chicken suit and joked that it was her opponent, Katie Hobbs, breaking into Lake's campaign office. Both lost.
That leaves Constantino. On our count, a call in his favor would give the chicken its first win in at least 12 years of trying.
The Unbeaten One-Hit Wonders
At the other end of the table sit seven species with perfect records.
The fish was first. In 1966, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller's campaign wanted to promote him without reminding voters who he was due to his increasing unpopularity, so it ran an interview with a largemouth bass puppet, questioned by a hand in a hat about Rockefeller's plan to stop water pollution. The bass was enthusiastic and Rockefeller was reelected.
In 2002, Republican Sonny Perdue's campaign portrayed Georgia Governor Roy Barnes as a giant, crown-wearing rat terrorizing Atlanta. The 10-minute film was never shown on television but it spread online. Perdue won.
In 2010, Carly Fiorina's campaign tried to brand her California Senate primary rival Tom Campbell a fiscal conservative in name only with a three-and-a-half-minute web video that began with sheep grazing and ended with lightning and a man in a sheep costume crawling on all fours, eyes glowing red. Its visionary creator, Fred Davis III, had also made Perdue's rat. Fiorina won the primary.
In 2014, Iowa's Ernst introduced herself by describing castrating hogs, promising to make Washington's big spenders squeal. The roughly $9,000 ad made her a national name and, eventually, a senator. The same year, Club for Growth Action released an ad in which a parrot named Harley repeated Arkansas Democrat Mark Pryor's promises that people could keep their health plans. Pryor lost to Tom Cotton.
The deer and the duck owe their records to one ad. In 2012, Montana Democrat Jon Tester shared the screen with a talking stuffed duck, mounted deer heads and a growling wolf rug, and won reelection.
The Bear: Played Two, Won One
In 1988, Democrat Joe Lieberman ran ads portraying Connecticut's Republican senator Lowell Weicker as a cartoon bear, alternately sleeping and grouchy. Lieberman won. In 2006, facing a primary challenge from Ned Lamont, who had Weicker's backing, he revived the bear for an animated web ad with Lamont as its cub. Lieberman lost the primary, though he kept his seat in November as an independent.
The Dog: Played Seven, Lost Four
Man's best friend, sadly for dog lovers, has a losing record.
In 2010, Pennsylvania Democrat Joe Sestak filmed a Senate ad cleaning up after his dog, Belle, and lost. In Illinois, Democratic Governor Pat Quinn accused his Republican challenger of backing a bill to let shelters euthanize dogs and cats in gas chambers. Quinn won.
In 2014, Georgia Democrat John Barrow played fetch with a golden retriever, saying he wouldn't wish Washington on a dog, and lost. In Texas, Dwayne Stovall, challenging Senator John Cornyn in the Republican primary, accused him of voting to please "some guy that looks and fights like a turtle," presumably meaning Mitch McConnell, before his dog declared a taste for turtle soup. Stovall lost, taking both dog and turtle down with him.
The dog's best year was 2022. Georgia's Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, had won his seat in a January 2021 runoff with ads starring a beagle named Alvin, who turned out to have been borrowed from a supporter. His Republican opponent Herschel Walker's campaign released a mock animal-rescue video suggesting Alvin had gone missing. Warnock brought him back for the December runoff, recreating the original ad down to the bag of dog waste, and won. In Pennsylvania, the Humane Society Legislative Fund backed Democrat John Fetterman with an ad featuring Nora, a beagle rescued from an animal-testing lab. Fetterman won too.
The Monkey: Played Two, Won One
In 2012, Florida Republican Connie Mack attacked Bill Nelson over federal funding for research involving monkeys and cocaine, and lost. Two years later, the National Republican Congressional Committee tried again against John Barrow in Georgia with an ad featuring a woman with a monkey on her shoulder, complaining about $800,000 in research into how monkeys respond to unfairness and behave on cocaine, funded by the 2009 stimulus Barrow voted for. This time the monkey won.
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The Party Mascots: Played Three, Lost Three
The symbols of American democracy have yet to win an election in this selection.
In 2014, Washington state Democrat Estakio Beltran fired a shotgun at an elephant-shaped piñata and rode off on a donkey. He removed the video after criticism, including from a gun-safety group founded by Gabby Giffords, and was eliminated in the primary. In 2026, Florida Republican Ben Butler visited a group of donkeys after being told that to understand Washington he should surround himself with jackasses, then apologized. He lost his primary.
The Relegation Zone
Several animals managed one appearance and one defeat. Louisiana Republican Rob Maness taped an alligator's jaws shut in a 2014 Senate ad and finished third. Michigan Republicans showed Gary Peters fleeing a tornado of money-spewing sharks in "Loan Sharknado," but Peters won the Senate seat. In 2018, California Democrat Asif Mahmood's animated cow promised he would not treat patients like cattle and urged a vote for "Mah-moooooood." It was an udder disaster. He did not make it out of the primary.
Mythical Beasts
Bigfoot split his two campaigns. In 2018, Virginia Democrat Leslie Cockburn accused Republican Denver Riggleman of being a devotee of Bigfoot erotica after drawings of a naked Sasquatch surfaced on his Instagram. Riggleman called it a long-running joke with military friends and won. In Minnesota, Democrat Dean Phillips sent Bigfoot to search for Republican Representative Erik Paulsen, whom he accused of dodging town halls, a hunt that ended in the lobby of a pharmaceutical company. Phillips won.
The wolf, assuming that includes werewolves, is the only animal unbeaten in more than one outing. Tester's wolf rug supplies one win. The other belongs to Walker, who explained during the 2022 runoff that, having learned a werewolf could kill a vampire, he would rather be a werewolf. Warnock's campaign put the remarks in an ad, and the werewolf was credited with a win, against the man who brought it up. Walker's earlier question about why apes still exist if humans evolved from them goes unscored in this selection.
The Ark of 2026
This year's results have been mixed. Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn's campaign posted an AI-generated video of rival Wesley Hunt with a Pomeranian, casting him as a show dog, and without disclosing the AI. Hunt went out in the first round, but Cornyn lost the nomination to Ken Paxton in a May runoff anyway, and now Paxton himself is out.
The bright spot is Pasta. Wisconsin Democratic state Representative Steve Doyle released an ad warning voters about politicians who manipulate their emotions, then introduced his baby alpaca, who hoped they would vote for him. According to unofficial results as of writing, Doyle held the 94th Assembly District, the only Democrat in the chamber defending a seat Trump carried in 2024. Pasta awaits certification.
That puts Republican animals at 0-2 this cycle, chicken notwithstanding.
The Final Table
Across 34 decided contests, the side bringing the animal won 15 and lost 19. Democratic animals went 9-10; Republican animals went 6-9. Animals deployed in primaries won one race in 10, thanks to the demon sheep, while those in general elections and runoffs went 14-10.
One prediction: The campaigns will keep reaching for the menagerie anyway. American politics has long gone to the dogs. And to the chickens, pigs, monkeys, sharks, cows, bears and alpacas.
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