Ex-GOP ad maker says Republican just handed her foe the clip of cycle: 'Best footage'

Longtime Republican strategist Rick Wilson thinks a GOP senator from Mississippi may have just made the most damaging ad of the 2026 midterms, and she did it for free.

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) was asked about rising beef prices, and she answered that “you know you have so many proteins to choose from.”

Her Democratic opponent, Scott Colom, quickly put the clip in a campaign video.

Wilson, a Lincoln Project co-founder who left the Republican Party, wrote about the moment in his Friday newsletter.

“Spend thirty years making political ads, and you learn that the best footage is always the stuff your opponent shoots for you,” Wilson wrote. “Nobody has to explain the line. Nobody has to add ominous music.”

“A sitting United States senator looked at families who can’t afford ground chuck and told them to go find a nice lentil,” he added.

Wilson said the moment sums up the GOP’s fall campaign. In races around the country, Republicans have attacked Democratic candidates as vegans. The Daily Wire even put out an undercover video claiming Colorado Democrat Manny Rutinel keeps his meat intake low.

“A party that broke the economy is arguing over who eats the most brisket, while voters at the grocery store are asking something much simpler: why does it cost so much?” Wilson wrote.

“Those voters don’t care what Manny Rutinel eats for dinner,” he added. “They care that they can’t afford their own.”