It's Time for a Family Conversation, GOP

Republicans need a frank discussion about their future after a very unimpressive 2022 midterm election. It's about the elephant in the room.

Dear fellow Republicans - especially those of you who remain loyal and ardently supportive of former President Donald Trump. We need to have a serious and frank family conversation.

I’m no “never Trumper.” I voted for Trump twice. Reluctantly the first time since I’d strongly supported my friend and former US Senator Rick Santorum’s (R-PA) candidacy for the GOP nomination, followed by US Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), and then finally a vote in the Pennsylvania GOP primary in 2016 for US Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX). Still, there was no way I was voting to help elect Hillary Clinton. Trump got my vote in 2016, Access Hollywood tape and all.

In 2020, I enthusiastically supported Trump. His mostly stellar conservative record as President, capstoned with three impressive Supreme Court confirmations (thanks in no small part to Mitch McConnell), was enough for me. No wars, low inflation, and a booming economy (until Covid) were icing on the cake.

So I’m not here as a “never Trumper.” If he runs and is our nominee in 2024, I’ll vote for him. But we must discuss that in light of the profoundly disappointing 2020 midterm elections. The GOP may win control of the House and Senate, but that is highly uncertain and far less than GOP officials predicted. A GOP majority of 1 - 219 seats - in the House is possible. Talk about no margin for error.

Trump may be a primary reason behind turning a “red wave” into barely a nod.

The problem appears to be with independent voters, which according to one exit poll, broke +2 percent for Democrats, breaking the historic norms for ordinary midterm elections. In midterm elections over the past decade, independents broke for one party or another between 12 to 18 percent, usually the party not in control of the White House. Not so this year. Why? Not sure. Subsequent polling may tell us, but exit polling and speculation suggest Trump’s late machinations over an impending announcement of his 2024 candidacy and the abortion issue, which ranked second to inflation in voters’ minds. Independent voters made up 31% of the electorate this year, which is growing. Gen Z voters (born after 1996) broke heavily for Democrats.

Hear me out. I acknowledge and respect your reasons for supporting Trump, starting with the grotesquely unfair manner in which he’s been treated by congressional Democrats, the mainstream media, federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and even some fellow Republicans. I get your fascination and focus on the threat of “globalism” and elitist “deep state” dominance and Trump’s threat to it.

But he’s become too toxic. It’s time to cut our losses and move on. Trump, who will turn 80 in 2024 and would only be able to serve one term if elected, cost us House and Senate seats and increasingly looks unelectable. Democrats salivate for him to run again and serve as the GOP nominee. They were relieved when he raised his orange head with taunts of a presidential campaign announcement at rallies in Ohio, Pennsylvania (how did that work out?), and elsewhere just before the election.

Consider the evidence. Let’s start with the election results. Which Republicans romped, which ones lost, and why?

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was the election season’s big winner with a nearly 20-point romp over former GOP-turned-Democrat former Gov. Charlie Crist. His margin helped the GOP capture four new US House seats and aided Rubio in his landslide over Democratic US Rep. Val Demmings. Just four years ago, DeSantis won a tight and even surprising 30,000-vote win over Andrew Gillum.

DeSantis enjoyed no support from Trump this election. Shortly before the election, Trump attacked DeSantis at one of his rallies, calling him “Ron DeSanctimonious.” It didn’t seem to hurt, did it?

And then there’s New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, who also ran without Trump’s support or blessing. He won by 17 points. The Granite State’s congressional candidates all ran as pro-Trump Republicans, including the estimable General Don Bolduc for US Senate. Nearly 20 percent of Sununu’s vote went to Democratic incumbent Maggie Hassan. The two GOP House candidates, including a former Trump White House staffer, also lost decisively.

Democrats spent millions in the GOP primary to promote Bolduc’s candidacy over former St. Sen. President Chuck Morse. It worked. Could Morse have defeated Hassan? We’ll never know, but he was more aligned with Sununu than Trump or Bolduc.

Overall, Democrats spent an estimated $46 million in GOP primaries to promote the most pro-Trump candidates, including Darren Bailey for Governor of Illinois (he lost), Bolduc, and several House candidates, many of whom in competitive races lost, especially the Trump-endorsed John Gibbs in Michigan’s previously GOP-held Third Congressional district. Gibbs defeated incumbent Rep. Peter Meijer in the GOP primary, then lost the general election by 13 points. Pennsylvania Democrats promoted Doug Mastriano in the GOP gubernatorial primary. It worked.

Georgia’s incumbent Governor, Brian Kemp, also cruised to reelection over his 2018 opponent, election denier Stacey Abrams. In May, Trump endorsed his primary opponent, former US Senator David Perdue (defeated in the 2020 Georgia Senate runoff). Kemp demolished Perdue with 71% of the GOP primary vote. On the other hand, Trump-endorsed US Senate nominee Herschel Walker ran at least five points behind Kemp and now is headed to a December runoff that may decide which party controls the US Senate.

Then there is incumbent Governor Mike DeWine’s 25-point romp to reelection in the Buckeye State. While Trump’s late endorsement in Ohio’s US Senate primary catapulted author (Hillbilly Elegy) JD Vance to the nomination, he won his election by just 7 points. Three GOP candidates for state Supreme Court seats fared better, all with double-digit victories. Former Marine and Yale Law-educated Vance kept his distance from Trump in the general election. JD Vance is now Senator-elect.

Vance may owe his nomination to Trump, but that endorsement was a burden. His margin of victory mirrored Trump’s Ohio win two years ago.

Arizona remains a mystery, given the vagueries of its bizarre election counting system. Both gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake and Senate nominee Blake Masters - endorsed by Trump and embracing him in return - are trailing at this stage. Democratic nominee and Secretary of State Katie Hobbs was singularly the worst candidate of the 2022 election. And she may win.

In Pennsylvania, Trump’s endorsement of New Jersey transplant and celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz propelled him to a narrow GOP primary election win. His late endorsement of Mastriano helped seal his primary win. How did those candidates fare? I think you know. Trump now reportedly blames his wife for his endorsement of Oz. Wow. Don’t try that at home.

Want more evidence? How about a poll conducted in a “red” part of Florida (what part isn’t red anymore?) by a pollster and their client, whose names I will protect.

QUESTION  *. WOULD YOU BE MORE OR LESS LIKELY TO VOTE FOR A CANDIDATE WHO IS A DONALD TRUMP SUPPORTER? 

                       1.    Much More          24%

                       2.    Somewhat more    9%   

                       3.    Somewhat less      4%

                       4.    Much less             43% 

                       5.    No difference       15%

                      6.   Not sure                 6%

It doesn’t take a math genius to realize that there is a 14-point difference between those somewhat or more likely to support Trump candidates (33%) and those less inclined (47%). And pay attention to the intensity - 43% are “much less” likely. That is yuge, as Trump might say.

I know what some of you are saying. “The GOP can’t win without us,” extol fervent Trump supporters, citing polls showing him as the clear favorite for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024. For now. But midterm election polls and results also show that more voters are lost than gained by Trump’s embrace.

I also know the popular MAGA argument for Trump, as shared in this interesting American Thinker post by J.B. Shurk.

There are videos making the rounds showing President Trump standing on stage in Miami's pouring rain while imploring Americans to get out and vote.  The metaphor is striking.  There's Trump, battling the elements, lively as ever, refusing to give up, insisting on finishing what he's started.  Citizen Free Press appropriately notes that "President Trump is truly a force of nature."

I know that the months ahead will make for some spirited political debate among friends, but I encourage you to cement in your minds this quintessential image of Trump unbroken and unbowed.  Whatever else can be said about the man (and there is plenty), he remains the only leader in our times unafraid to stand alone.  When other self-proclaimed allies run the other way or look for somewhere safe to weather the approaching storm, Trump stands inside the tempest, demanding that it give up and surrender.  That's something that will forever separate him from those who pretend to be him.

It has become normal to deconstruct Trump's public appeal to something as basic as he fights!  Yet it is not just that Trump fights; it is why he fights that has attracted such a diverse voting coalition unlike any other political movement today.

I get all that. Ardent Trumpers also cite support for DeSantis from alleged “globalists,” including major GOP financiers like Ken Griffin. Funny, DeSantis hasn’t behaved like one. And DeSantis, for his part, has never criticized Donald Trump. Some thanks he gets, being called “Ron DeSanctimonious.” Trump’s name-calling schtick is getting a bit old and lame.

The problem is this: Unfairly or not, Trump is toxic. Charles C.W. Cooke, editor of the National Review opines:

I’m not being cute: Trump is the Republican establishment now. He’s the default, the Man, the swamp. It is Trump who is widely considered the front-runner for the party’s nomination in 2024. It is Trump whose endorsements are treated as if they were official edicts. It is Trump to whom the press and the public tend to link all GOP nominees. And, judging by the squeals that emanated from his allies yesterday, Trump’s machine intends to do everything it can to keep it that way, and to thus ensure that he wins the next primary election and loses the next presidential election. With the country in its present state, Republicans simply cannot afford that sort of frivolous, low-energy, old-boys-club complacency. GOPe, you’re on notice.

A few days ago, Trump started criticizing Ron DeSantis. A day or two later, Trump started threatening DeSantis. “I think if he runs,” Trump said, “he could hurt himself very badly. I really believe he could hurt himself badly. I don’t think it would be good for the party.” Upping the ante, Trump then pretended that he knew “things” about DeSantis “that won’t be very flattering,” and promised to reveal them if DeSantis even considered challenging him in 2024.

This is classic establishment gate-keeping. It is also richly undeserved. Trump is a loser. He squeaked past the most unpopular woman in America in 2016, he presided over a blue wave in 2018, he lost to a barely breathing Joe Biden in 2020, and he hand-picked a bevy of losing Republican nominees in 2022. Ron DeSantis is a winner. He beat the Democratic wave in 2018, he got the biggest challenge of the last four years — the Covid-19 pandemic — almost exactly right, and he won reelection by the largest margin achieved by any Republican gubernatorial nominee in Florida’s 177-year-history. Perhaps, on the internet, “loser lambasts winner” is an interesting story. In the real world, it is not.

And conservative Twitter might have already moved on.

Voters also are not interested in relitigating the 2020 election or putting up with so-called “election deniers,” even though Trump has strong cases that election irregularities and even fraud played a significant role. The scourge of “vote by mail” fueled by Democrats during the pandemic is a curse on our election system and invites corruption and distrust in the integrity of our elections. But that ship has sailed. The need here is not airing grievances but fixing laws at the state level.

This is no endorsement of DeSantis, someone I’ve never met. There will be several strong candidates in the race, especially if Trump bows out to play “senior statesman.” I won’t name them - you know. And while Trump may still have the pole position as we advance, we need to be blunt. Our country needs a strong leader after the Biden-Harris debacle, but Trump is the likely major GOP candidate least likely to recapture the presidency and course-correct the nation. And we cannot afford another Democratic presidency.

The Democrats’ best hope to retain power is a Trump nomination in 2024. He helped deliver them a mild midterm election.

Let’s not give it to them. This is not being “never Trump.” It is being “over Trump.”