Hard as it can be to define the best strategies for one’s party, it’s also imporant–and fun–to mock the other party’s strategic thinking. I had a chance to do that this week at New York:
Hanging over all the audacious steps taken so far this year by Donald Trump and his Republican Party has been the fact that voters will get a chance to respond in 2026. The midterm elections could deny the GOP its governing trifecta and thus many of its tools for imposing Trump’s will on the country. Indeed, one reason congressional Republicans ultimately united around Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill was the sense that they needed to get all the policy victories they could in one fell swoop before the tough uphill slog to a likely midterm defeat began. No one had to be reminded that midterm House losses by the president’s party are a rule with rare exceptions. With Republicans holding a bare two-seat majority (temporarily three due to vacancies created by deaths), the gavel of Speaker Mike Johnson must feel mighty slippery in his hands.
But if only to keep their own spirits high, and to encourage fundraising, Republican voices have been talking about how they might pull off a midterm miracle and hang on to the trifecta. A particularly high-profile example is from former RNC political director Curt Anderson, writing at the Washington Post. Anderson notes the unhappy precedents and professes to have a new idea in order to “defy history.” First, however, he builds a big straw man:
“[I]t’s always the same story. And the same conventional campaign wisdom prevails: Every candidate in the president’s party is encouraged by Washington pundits and campaign consultants to run away from the national narrative. They are urged to follow instead House Speaker Thomas P. ‘Tip’ O’Neill Jr.’s famous axiom that ‘all politics is local’ and to think small and focus on homegrown issues.”
Actually, nobody who was really paying attention has said that since ol’ Tip’s retirement and death. As Morris Fiorina of the Hoover Institution has explained, presidential and congressional electoral trends made a decisive turn toward convergence in 1994, mostly because the ideological sorting out of both parties was beginning to reduce reasons for ticket splitting. And so, returning to a pattern that was also common in the 19th century, 21st-century congressional elections typically follow national trends even in midterms with no presidential candidates offering “coattails.” So in making the following prescription, Anderson is pushing on a wide-open door:
“[T]o maintain or build on its current narrow margin in the House, the Republican Party will have to defy historical gravity.
“The way to do that is not to shun Trump and concentrate on bills passed and pork delivered to the locals, but to think counterintuitively. Republicans should nationalize the midterms and run as if they were a general election in a presidential year. They should run it back, attempting to make 2026 a repeat of 2024, with high turnout.”
Aside from the fact that they have no choice but to do exactly that (until the day he leaves the White House and perhaps beyond, no one and nothing will define the GOP other than Donald Trump), there are some significant obstacles to “rerunning” 2024 in 2026.
There’s a lazy tendency to treat variations in presidential and midterm turnout as attributable to the strength or weakness of presidential candidates. Thus we often hear that a sizable number of MAGA folk “won’t bother” to vote if their hero isn’t on the ballot. Truth is, there is always a falloff in midterm turnout, and it isn’t small. The 2018 midterms (during Trump’s first term) saw the highest turnout percentages (50.1 percent) since 1914. But that was still far below the 60.1 percent of eligible voters who turned out in 2016, much less the 66.4 percent who voted in 2020. Reminding voters of the identity of the president’s name and party ID isn’t necessary and won’t make much difference.
What Anderson seems focused on is the fact that in 2024, for the first time in living memory, it was the Republican ticket that benefited from participation by marginal voters. So it’s understandable he thinks the higher the turnout, the better the odds for the GOP in 2026; that may even be true, though a single election does not constitute a long-term trend, and there’s some evidence Trump is losing support from these same low-propensity voters at a pretty good clip. At any rate, the message Anderson urges on Republicans puts a good spin on a dubious proposition:
“The GOP should define the 2026 campaign as a great national battle between Trump’s bright America First future and its continuing promise of secure borders and prosperity, versus the left-wing radicalism — open borders and cancel culture or pro-Hamas protests and biological men competing in women’s sports — that Democrats still champion. Make it a referendum on the perceived new leaders of the Democratic Party, such as far-left Reps. Jasmine Crockett (Texas) or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (New York).”
Without admitting it, Anderson points to the single biggest problem for Republicans: They don’t have a Democratic incumbent president or a Democratic Congress to run against. Jasmine Crockett is not, in fact, running in Pennsylvania, where she is likely unknown, and even AOC is a distant figure in Arizona. Democrats aren’t going to be running on “open borders and cancel culture or pro-Hamas protests or biological men competing in women’s sports” at all. And Republicans aren’t going to be running on “Trump’s bright America First future” either; they’ll be running on the currently unpopular Trump megabill and on economic and global conditions as they exist in 2026. Democrats could benefit from a final surge of Trump fatigue in the electorate and will almost certainly do well with wrong-track voters (including the notoriously unhappy Gen-Z cohort) who will oppose any incumbent party.
Whatever happens, it won’t be a 2024 rerun, and the best bet is that the precedents will bear out and Republicans will lose the House. A relatively small group of competitive races may hold down Democratic gains a bit, but unless an unlikely massive wave of prosperity breaks out, Hakeem Jeffries is your next Speaker and Republicans can worry about what they’ll do when Trump is gone for good.
Like Melior and Billmon, I read the muck-dog’s “strongest economy in 20 years” line, and nearly laughed out loud. It’s almost too ludicrous a statement to need response, but, for the record, as Billmon says, the quote refers to one brief three-month period. It’s like an isolated day of thundershowers in the midst of a three-year drought — any public official who went around saying “We now have our best water situation in 20 years” would be strung up.
The economy over the Bush term has been clearly poor. The recent (undeniable) job gains held promise of at least reversing the public verdict on current conditions. But now signs are suggesting that what recovery there was is about done: the job numbers took a sudden dip, GDP for even Q1 were revised down, all other reports suggest even weaker activity in Q2 and Q3…and the oil price situation grows ominously bad (the Yukos problem may push it into crisis). At best, the economy will be a semi-negative factor for Bush, since many never bought into the recovery idea to begin with (particularly in swing states). But much worse is possible: a near-downturn prior to the election, and (as I’ve heard predicted by reputable sources) a sharp market drop. If that should come about, Bush will long for the days when he could hope for 47-49% of the vote.
Ron,
I understand that there are senarios that don’t include winning Ohio or Florida. I’m not so confident about Arizona. And, Missouri will also be very tough.
A poll out last week in Nevada has Kerry up by 4 points. Plus, I’ll bet that New Hampshire goes for Kerry. Southern NH is the high growth area and is filled with Massachusetts Democrats moving over the boarder. He’s 2 points up in a poll from July 21.
Unfortunately, combined with Nevada that stills comes up 1 short. So, you’ll still need West Virginia or possibly Arkansas. But, let’s face it, if places like Nevada, NH, and W. Virginia fall to Kerry, then we’re talking decisve win, because that trend will pull, at the very least, Ohio and possibly Florida with it.
Bush has to be VERY concerned right now. There are no states that went for Gore in 2000 where he realistically has a chance. There are a number of states that went for Bush, where Kerry is either slightly ahead, or in a statistical tie.
Hold onto your hat for the October surprise. This group will not go down easy. They will beg, borrow, cheat and steal to stay in power.
“Well, the economy is the strongest in 20 years…”
If the Republican chowder heads want to run on that message in Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin, I think that’s just dandy.
(That “strongest economy in 20 years” talking point, BTW, applies to the GDP growth rate in exactly one one quarter – the third quarter of last year. And, of course, it doesn’t apply at all to employment and wage growth.)
But like I said, if that’s how the Bush-Cheney campaign wants to commit suicide, it’s fine with me.
Good point, Ron. I’m actually feeling very optimistic about our chances of taking Arizona, more so than Missouri this time.
“Well, the economy is the strongest in 20 years…”
Keep whistling. You must have missed the announcement this week of the return of record budget deficits, the looming spikes in oil prices, and “unexpectedly” more billions to feed the Iraq war. There is little confidence in the fundamentals by investors (who don’t just listen to Greenspan) right now, despite record valuations.
Keith,
I don’t think we’re necessarily screwed if we lose Ohio and Florida. I think Kerry will win both, but if he carries all of Gore’s states, he only needs 10 additional electoral votes, and he could get those in Missouri, or Arizona, or by winning West Virginia and Nevada.
as a side note, here’s a link that ought to settle the debate re kerry’s anticipated convention bounce:
http://salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?wire=D843KIN80.html
despite ed gillespie’s purposefully wrong take on the size of convention bounces historically enjoyed by candidates (he says 15 points), the truth is
“[t]he average bounce for a convention like the current Democratic convention is 5 to 7 percentage points, said Frank Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup Poll.”
now, why has the 5-7 points number been so hard to verify? I know what gillespie’s motives are but why can’t the major media outlets simply use past poll data to debunk GOP claims ?
the answer for me is incredibly lazy journalists who are quite content to mechanically structure articles around point/counterpoint, instead of doing a little background work to verify the factual allegations they so blindly print. I guess it’s easier to parrot GOP talking points than take the few minutes to run a NEXIS search or call a polling organization to get a definitive answer.
really, in the information age, not bothering to verify your source’s statements is unforgivable.
Well, the economy is the strongest in 20 years and Greenspan is already tapping on the brakes. It makes sense that folks would give Bush a good mark on the economy. It’s done really well rebounding from the 2000-2001 recession.
Polls, polls, polls… I study them till my head spins. Am I wrong in sensing that this whole race will be decided by two states.. Ohio and Florida. If Kerry wins one of them, game is over. If he loses both, four more long years!!
Net-net (if you can excuse the expression), the polls show K/E about two points ahead, and leading in the electoral college. That is, if there are ten polls in any given two week period, and eight of them show K/E ahead, that ought to be a pretty good measurement. Obviously, any one poll has a much larger margin of error.
Remember the under-measurement of Reagan votes in 1980. And given the enthusiasm this year, I’m hoping for a good, un-measured, turnout effect.
I agree that it’s got to be a party ID thing with the Post poll. It just just such an outlier in so many ways that it’s not a reasonable poll. The deltas, even with it’s own poll the previous month, is just too severe for any reasonable explanation. 10 point shifts are all over the place when not that much happened in the last month to favor bush. Also, the Post polls have always given bush much larger job approval ratings than other polls. It’s been the Post polls with the Fox ‘polls’ that are way outside the norm. I’m not sure what the Post is doing (I know what Fox is doing!), but they have consistenly produced out of the mainstream poll numbers. These latest are just another example.
I think the Post/ABC poll is having some problems with sample quality – first there was the huge swing towards Kerry on the terrorism issue back in June (which the Post played up a big story) then the big swing back towards Bush in the two July polls. I don’t think anybody really believes that Kerry closed to even with Bush on the GOP signature issue – and certainly none of the other polls ever showed it.
Something else I noticed (somewhere) about the Post/ABC poll was that their latest sample was 33% Republican, which seemed awfully high to me. I don’t think Post/ABC controls for party identification, so what we’re seeing may just be some random noise – or an exaggeration of a real trend, which the Gallup poll would seem to suggest.
Given the incredible partisan polarization on just about every issue, it seems logical to me that even a minor shift in party ID within the samples could have a big impact on the results.
Of course, controlling for party ID has its own problems – what’s the “right” split? And I’m not going to argue that it’s the better way to do things. But the media, as usual, is doing an awful job of explaining the limitations of polling, and the fact that many of the “trends” that people think they see in the numbers are in fact just noise.
You could make a case that the concentration on first the Edwards selection, then the 9/11 Commission, and now the convention has been marginally beneficial for Bush, as it has kept the chief source of his weakness — Iraq — from holding the center ring. It’s not like nothing’s going on over there: we’re still losing 1-2 military per day, with countless more wounded, but it’s not leading the evening news. Fiascos like today’s might reverse that, especially once we’re past the conventions. I also think (and have heard from sources) that the round number “1000 dead” will get alot of attention from the press. It’s only a number, but those things register (As analogy: Carter had the horrible break of the first anniversary of the hostage-taking occurring right before Election Day 1980. It amounted to a media-sponsored tough negative ad right before voting).
68 people blew up today in Iraq. Yeah, no drama there.
Bush isn’t quite as vulnerable as he once was, now that there isn’t as much drama going on in Iraq. As for people talking about Kerry not re-defining himself, I don’t see why not. Gore wasn’t defining himself in the 2000 convention we he said “I want to show you who I truly am”–he was redefining himself, after everyone saying he was a dull robot. Kerry could actually give a speech as good as Edwards, provided that Edwards wrote it for him.
One or the other is outside the 95% confidence band
Here’s a data point for you: watching the network news, all that my wife heard about the convention was that Teresa Kerry-Heinz told a reporter to “shove it”.
Great coverage, eh?
Are you implying something? Do you think these results are not honest somehow, or simply that
this must be an outlier poll?
MSNBC reported the WAPO poll results because it builds viewer interest based on tension, because it is seen by conservatives as a liberal cable outlet and must therefore throw them bones and because MSNBC is tied in with Newsweek, which is also tied in with WAPO.
and why did msnbc decide to run with the poll showing kerry behind at the start of the DNC…not only did they hype the wapo poll on their site as the main headline but they wouldn’t shutup about it on TV either