Mitch McConnell was correct: “candidate quality“Is one problem.
It is still too early to say, as of this writing, exactly where the parliamentary majority will fall once all votes are counted. But it was clear about the amp, like The Daily BeastMatt Lewis’s arguedthat the GOP has blown its chances at a classic out-of-party midterm sweep and its underperformance — focused, with some notable exceptions, among MAGA candidates — signals the general electorate’s appetite for Normal GOP and it growing distaste for former President Donald Trump and his imitators.
That’s even true for many Republicans. An NBC poll, repeated frequently over the past three years, shows the GOP’s loyalty to Trump himself dwindling while loyalty to the Republican Party is growing. Likewise, a New York Times survey shows higher support for the Republican-led Congress than for specific Senate candidates—all confirmed by Trump– who can bring that result.
But if the big lesson of 2022 is that the GOP should revert to what it was before Trump to compete effectively by 2024, the big question is: how?
Much was made—And rather — about the Democratic Party’s dominance by its base of operations, how the party’s message and agenda are distorted by being too attentive to the demands of a very vocal leftist Twitterati but electorally insignificant. But these midterm results suggest that the same Republican problem could be even worse.
“How can the party normalize the general election if the base screams all over the primaries?“
Democrats still have a broader primary voter base, like those who chose President Joe Biden over his leftist opponents in 2020, who would help the party censor if they chose. (Usually not, but the option is yes.) If GOP leaders wanted to make an equivalent move, however, they would not have many strategic voters willing to support them.
The base of operations is much larger than in the GOP. In fact, it really is the base. How can the party normalize for the general election if grounded screaming all through the primaries?
We’ve come a long way with the era of party bosses picking candidates in smoky rooms. For Republicans and Democrats, the introduction of the primary system about a century ago has had a democratizing impact, which has clear advantages, but also – as the past seven years have demonstrated – real risks. In another era, given the GOP establishment’s opposition to Trump when he first announced his candidacy in 2015, it is possible that the party leadership blocked his nomination and perhaps the entire campaign. MAGA movement. A properly recruited smoke-filled room may have brought us Jeb!
But this is not that era, and the official Republican Party machine is not what it used to be. Party Congress has evolved into entertainment, a multi-night televised event rather than a place for actual politics around party rules, platforms and nominations. I texted a Republican friend, with early results last night. “It’s not even a car,” she replied. “It’s just a dilapidated building and a job program for 22-year-olds.”
washington articlesMegan McArdle’s warning this morning that if the GOP “digs in for another ten years, it’s possible that neither side will be able to salvage the moment Trump finally left the scene; it will be a rump party optimized for petting Trump’s ego rather than winning elections.” She’s right — or maybe too right.
Did the warning come too late? Prominent Republican Party Donors and Leaders more than ever enthusiastic about removing Trump in favor of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for the presidential nod in 2024, especially after the DeSantis landslide in Florida on Tuesday night. Their enthusiasm it’s not nothingbut there is no guarantee The GOP primaries will agree.
If the Republican Party wants to learn the normal lesson, its problem is the primaries. Specifically, it’s the operating basis for those votes, choosing candidates they’re interested in but more moderate Republicans and unpopular voters. And that is a problem that will be extremely difficult to fix.
A more aggravating factor the party can anticipate is Democratic support for these radical primaries, who will be less likely to appeal to the general election. Democrats spent more than $50 million to promote more polarized Republican candidates in this year’s primaries and in all four where is the race? Demo-boosted Republicans won their primaries, surname lost the shared. That success means the tactic is likely to exist here.
However, democracy only intervenes like this works because GOP .’s base of operations prefer older candidates and don’t seem to understand which most of the voting public did not. The sheer size of that base means that simply ignoring their non-strategic preferences is not an option. The leadership maneuver to remove low-quality MAGA candidates from the ballot seemed like a viable option.
One thing that could work is to change the composition of the Republican primaries, bringing back marginalized and former Republicans who left the party for Trump. But good luck with that — in the states that matter most, it’s voters who just had a night of practicing voting for the Democratic Party.
