Gun control was supposed to be the issue of 2018.
Yet it has receded so far into the background of the midterm congressional elections that Everytown for Gun Safety, a major player in gun control, is spending its money on ads covering abortion, health care and the Republican tax bill — but nary a mention of assault rifles or bump stocks.
There are new voices on the electoral playing field, including students from the Parkland, Florida, high school shooting in February that left 17 people dead.
But the cable news cameras that helped give the students a platform have turned elsewhere, leaving the activists struggling for attention in an election season crowded with the politics of the Supreme Court, President Trump and international crises.
“Perhaps the gun issue has waned a bit in the absence of highly publicized mass shootings in the past few months. The passion to enact gun reform is usually heightened after a mass shooting and then quickly dissipates,” said Adam Winkler, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the author of “Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America.”
Everytown and its affiliate Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America did not respond to repeated requests for comment on the campaigns.
March for Our Lives, the student-led movement that sprang from the Parkland shooting, has attempted to keep the momentum with its #TurnoutTuesday series, which hosts events in cities across the country every Tuesday until the Nov. 6 elections.
Everytown has spent $1.9 million this election cycle, up from $386,922 in the 2014 midterms. But the spending was across a vast number of races, with an average of $861 spent per candidate, according to campaign finance data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.
A separate Everytown fund spent
