After 2022 setback, GOP race for 2024 wide open
The 2022 midterm elections were, by any objective measure, tremendously disappointing for Republicans. As has already been discussed ad nauseam, the “red wave” that so many – yours truly included – had predicted simply did not materialize. The reasons for that are numerous; no one individual, one institution or one specific systemic failure is to blame. There is, in short, a lot of blame to go around here. Because while Republicans actually won the national popular vote by roughly four points, there is no way to describe their historically awful first-presidential-term opposition-party midterm performance, in which the GOP lost almost every high-profile state-level “swing” race, as anything other than disastrous.
One clear reason for Republicans’ setback is the extent to which they were thoroughly outcompeted by Democrats when it comes to the most bare-bones, brass tacks elements of modern politics. Specifically, when it came to party and candidate-specific fundraising, as well as early vote/vote-by-mail mobilization and the mechanics of ballot harvesting/get-out-the-vote operations, the GOP was outperformed, outclassed and left in the dust. It is pretty embarrassing that one of America’s major two political parties seems clueless about how to execute on 21st-century American politics, but here we are.
Moving forward, the Republican National Committee and the various other organs of the Republican Party establishment would, if they were remotely serious about winning elections, engage in deep introspection and enact concrete changes. Alas, early signs are not promising. The milquetoast Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN) won his bid for House majority whip; Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was retained as Senate minority leader; House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) appears on track for the House speakership come January; RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel is poised to remain ensconced in her sinecure. As the perhaps-apocryphal bon mot often attributed to Talleyrand goes, “They have learned nothing, and they have forgotten nothing.”
To an extent, the GOP needs to figure out how to fundraise better and implement a better voter targeting/ballot harvesting operation before any other conversation becomes pertinent. To wit, there is perhaps little point in discussing 2024 unless and until the GOP makes the necessary operational changes to give its presidential candidate a viable chance at winning. But the reason that the topic of 2024 must be broached is that one of the reasons – not the sole reason, but very much a reason – for the GOP’s lackluster 2022 performance has himself already done precisely that.
I speak, of course, about former President Donald Trump, who announced his 2024 presidential candidacy last Tuesday evening at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
Trump announced his candidacy, in uncharacteristically subdued fashion, precisely one week after he indisputably harmed Republican electoral prospects across the country. An analysis from The New York Times’ Nate Cohn, based on underlying data from The Cook Political Report’s primary scoreboard data, concluded that the “Trump effect” at the ballot box this cycle amounted to a five-point penalty compared with other Republicans. Specifically, while Cohn showed that Republicans nationwide ran an average of 5.6% ahead of their 2020 vote margin, what he dubbed so-called “MAGA candidates” ran only 0.7% ahead – thus, a 4.9% differential.
Any number of high-profile statewide races anecdotally bear this out. In New Hampshire, Gov. Chris Sununu outperformed Republican Senate candidate Don Bolduc by 13 points; in Pennsylvania, “ultra-MAGA” Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano got blown out by Josh Shapiro, and underperformed (fellow Trump endorsee and 2022 loser) Dr. Mehmet Oz; in Georgia, Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker ran well behind Gov. Brian Kemp, who cruised to reelection; in Arizona, Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake underperformed the statewide Republican voter share by six points. Trump lost many other high-profile House races as well, such as Bo Hines in North Carolina, John Gibbs in Michigan and Joe Kent in Washington State.
Josh Hammer is a nationally syndicated columnist.