Hello everyone, this is Donald Trump, hopefully your favorite president of all time – better than Lincoln, better than Washington – with an important announcement. I’m doing my first official Donald J. Trump NFT collection.
Donald Trump (December 15 video announcement)
Republicans are rightly worried about 2024. Biden-Schumer stands for cultural re-edification and wealth re-distribution. Democrats added 2 governors and a senator. Legacy media are awfulizing the party’s internal battles for control of the US House and RNC. There’s no end to the Trump melodrama. Wait a minute: the national scoreboard (later) tells a different story. The GOP has the lead and fixable problems (like uniting in the belief that 4 more years of Joe Biden is worse than any Republican choice for president).
GOP Challenge: Trump’s Running (again)
The RNC has ordered a self-scout to know what worked (Florida) to keep on doing, what didn’t work (Arizona) to stop doing, and what (early voting) they need to start doing. However, if the top of the ticket is wrong, good policies and tactics can only do so much. Republicans need a “hot player” to carry the party in 2024, just as Reagan did in 1980. Trump, who has announced, is no longer that “hot” candidate – not when the “winner” boast is not his to make.
Last week, I heard both conservative Victor Davis Hanson and liberal Bob Woodward put the “winner” label on Ron DeSantis. Hanson noted Trump’s fall in recent polls coincides with his public self-destruction; odious words (nicknaming DeSantis) and acts (dinner with two antisemites). Woodward rightly thinks his “Trump Tapes” are a political suicide note from Trump’s own mouth. On cue, Trump teased a “major announcement” midweek that turned out to be the release of NFT trading cards on Thursday (see above).
This “latest stunt” and shameless “money grab” was so bad, Trump’s top 2016 advisors – Steve Bannon (“I can’t do this any more”), Steve Cortes (urged “firing everybody”) and Sebastian Gorka (“never should have happened”) – ran for cover (source: The New York Post). It just got easier for MAGA voters to let go of Trump. The timing couldn’t be any better.
DNC Challenge: Biden and Lost Voting Blocs
It’s easier for Republicans to change campaign tactics and candidates than it is for Democrats to resurrect its electoral base and replace Biden. Its core voting bloc is now unmarried women (yikes!) after other “loyal” blocs fled the extremism. This is why Democrats focused on early voting in 2020 and senate races in 2022 (as the GOP is now well aware).
Credit Democrats for holding on, in spite of the erosion of their electoral base since 2016. Still, there’s no sugar-coating the midterm results: they lost the House by 3,000,000 votes and hold just 44% of the seats in state legislatures (see chart below).
Suboptimal vote allocation kept the GOP from adding more than 9 House seats, but the six-year trend is clear:
- 2016 – GOP wins 63.2 million votes and loses 6 House seats
- 2018 – GOP wins 50.8 million votes and loses 41 seats
- 2020 – GOP wins 72.7 million votes and adds 14 seats
- 2022 – GOP wins 54.5 million votes and adds 9 seats
When 2020 is worse than 2016, and 2022 is worse than 2018, the Democrat arrow is pointing down for a reason. 2022 exit polls provide the answer. Since 2018, Democrats have lost 17 points with working-class voters (15 points with whites and 23 points with non-whites) and 18 points with voters under age 30. Since 2020, the they’ve lost 6 points with Blacks and 7 points with Hispanics. Democrats once owned these voting blocs. Now, they’re up for grabs.
The GOP just won suburban voters, rural voters, single men, married men and women, and voters over age 45, while turning “out their voters in greater percentages everywhere” (source: The Washington Times). This is how Gov. DeSantis (FL) widened his 2018 margin by 1,400,000 votes, and Gov. Kemp (GA) widened his 2018 margin by 304,000 votes. It’s how Lee Zeldin (NY) closed the 2018 gap by 1,100,000 votes in deep-blue New York’s gubernatorial race.
Don’t sleep on Democrat troubles in New York, because Zeldin set the tone for 2024 House races in other deep blue states like California and Washington. Now, the DNC can’t focus on a few Senate seats like they did this year: that number (contested seats) jumps from 14 to 23 in two years.
Just Follow Florida’s Road Map
The pundits fault Republicans for fumbling abortion, nominating wacko candidates, and ignoring early voting. That’s not Florida, where Republicans made abortion legal up to 15 weeks, ran DeSantis and Rubio at the top of the ticket, and beat Democrats at their own election game. In fact, the GOP won all but 3 demographic groups, and won the governor’s race by its largest margin since 1868.
Florida’s red wave began with a 600,000 “new voter” registration advantage, built a 315,000 early-vote lead, and stomped Democrats by 1,200,000 votes on Election-Day. Credit Governor DeSantis, who freed Floridians from COVID mandates (one of the few to campaign on it), and enacted anti-woke laws to make Florida “where woke goes to die.” His political will and skill swept Republicans to big wins, including Sen. Marco Rubio’s biggest win ever.
Rubio’s 1.3 million-vote margin proves smart electioneering matters. In contrast, Mehmet Oz fell behind by 567,000 early votes in Pennsylvania and lost a senate seat to a thug-looking Democrat by 263,000 votes. Rubio also proved experience matters. In contrast, the black celebrity Herschel Walker got fewer black votes (8%) than white incumbent governor Kemp (12%) on his way (Walker’s) to being Georgia’s only statewide GOP candidate to lose.
Electioneering 2024 Style
Forewarned is forearmed. Democrats changed election tactics to win in an evenly divided America. The RNC now knows the DNC’s ground game; suing to expand post-2020 election law changes, diverting millions from TV ads toward get-out-the-vote tactics, harvesting early votes, and curing ballots. The GOP watched Democrat veterans eke out victories over Republican rookies, and Warnock (D) out-spend Walker (R) by $78 million to eke out a win in Georgia’s senate race.
What’s changed since 2020 is Republicans now hold the gavels in the House, new owners control CNN and Twitter, and 2024 victories will go the party most adept at hand-to-hand combat. These are new realities that invite three GOP tactics:
- Impeach Sec. Mayorkas (DHS) – not President Biden – to force vulnerable Senate Democrats to defend the border fiasco in 2024
- Flood now-centrist CNN with GOP moderates (e.g. Susan Collins and Mitt Romney) to rebut the extreme MAGA narrative
- Leak the (real) Hunter Biden evidence to Twitter to force Big Media’s coverage
No Democrat’s going to jail, but plenty of Democrats come from battleground states and swing districts. Make Tim Kaine (VA) and Sherrod Brown (OH) defend “Nay” votes after House Republicans televise charts showing skyrocketing fentanyl deaths on Biden’s watch. The GOP must be intentional (sway voters) and tactical (make the Democrat un-electable). This is what Democrats have been doing to Republicans since 2016.
Ron DeSantis realized this in 2018, adapted, and buried Democrats with their own shovels four years later. This is why he’s now the “hot” Republican for president. Yes, it’s early, but what he’s done (win big) in a complex, diverse, and populous state is more than awesome. Put him on the short list and seek his advice – if you want Biden to be a one-term president.