The "Movement" is Moving On
Intrepid journalist Salena Zito spots trends on the ground that are evident in polling and the 2022 election results. And wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving
During the fall of 2020, I joined a family friend on a bike ride along the Susquehanna River that borders Lancaster and York Counties in south-central Pennsylvania. Both counties are deep red politically and steeped in history.
We started at Columbia, Pennsylvania, near what’s left of the Wrightsville Bridge, the burning of which in 1863 by overmatched Union forces changed the course of the Civil War. The event turned Confederate forces, planning to cross that bridge on their way to Harrisburg, back to Gettysburg. You know the thing.
During a brief rest stop along the Northwest Lancaster County River Trail near the Marietta Boat Ramp, we noted and commented on the plethora of Trump signs - even one planted on an anchored floating device in the middle of the Susquehanna. Many of them had been around for a while, and reports are that many remained after that election.
However, some of these signs and flags may be coming down.
I’ve lost a subscriber or two here for pointing out that Donald Trump was a net negative for Republicans during the 2022 midterm elections. Anecdotal evidence suggests many voters are moving on. No, they are not joining “never Trump” forces, which comprise about 10 percent of GOP voters. But the ranks of the “always Trump” are shrinking.
They are joining a growing caucus of “over Trump,” a term penned by friend Matt Brioullette, a Pennsylvania pro-business political activist and leader.
A few have tried to statistically prove Trump wasn’t a drag on the GOP ticket, citing the “differential” between the successes and failures of all 200+ candidates he endorsed. But extrapolating further to focus on the most competitive races tells a very different story. Phillip Wallach, a senior analyst for the American Enterprise Institute writing for the Washington Post, explains:
We can put a number on it by seeing how Trump-supported candidates did relative to those Republicans he did not endorse. If we look at all 401 contests in which a single Democrat faced a single Republican, there is not much difference. Relative to baseline expectations derived from their districts’ recent voting patterns (as calculated by the Cook Partisan Voting Index), 144 Trump-endorsed candidates exceeded their baselines by an average of 1.52 points. In 257 races where Trump did not endorse a general-election candidate, Republicans exceeded their baseline by 1.46 points.
But that similarity is driven mainly by Trump’s endorsements of many Republicans cruising to easy reelection in uncompetitive districts. If we focus exclusively on districts where the margin of victory was less than 15 points, such that the seat was conceivably in the balance, the picture that emerges is quite different.
In these 114 districts, candidates bearing Trump endorsements underperformed their baseline by a whopping five points, while Republicans who were without Trump’s blessing overperformed their baseline by 2.2 points — a remarkable difference of more than seven points.
I wonder how many readers Salena Zito (co-author of the definitive book about the 2016 election) will lose for doing the same thing I’ve done - pointing out the trend. One of America’s finest journalists and astute political observers (especially about Pennsylvania), Zito penned a story for the New York Sun (I’m a subscriber) that notes those ubiquitous Trump flags are beginning to come down.
Political signs are not a genuine indicator of support or political trends. On a recent drive along US 40 from the Maryland Border past historic Fort Necessity (the site of George Washington’s first battle. He surrendered) towards Uniontown in heavily GOP Washington County, Pennsylvania, the road was festooned with Trump-endorsed Doug Mastriano for Governor and Dr. Oz for Senate signs (both won the county but badly underperformed the incumbent Republican US Representative, Guy Reschenthaler).
But consistent with polling data, it appears that Trump supporters are moving on. Her story:
Movement Is Moving Beyond Trump
Trump supporters wave flags as they wait in line outside a political rally at Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. AP/Mary Altaffer
NEW ALEXANDRIA, Pennsylvania — Ever since President Trump lost to President Biden in 2020, there has been a flag hanging from a home not far from where I live that reads “Trump 2024” — one of the thousands I have seen across the country in the past two years. But yesterday, when I drove past this home, that sign was gone.
The Trump flag is a phenomenon I have written about for years. I have noted that it wasn’t really about Mr. Trump himself. It was mostly about the conservative populist movement, using the name of its only standard-bearer to let people know they were not going anywhere. At that point, no one else had stepped up to fill the void. And so, the flag bore the Trump name.
When the “Let’s Go Brandon” moment happened, many of those Trump signs were replaced with Brandon signs. If you’ve never understood the conservative populist movement, the significance might escape you. It was always about being a part of something. And for a time, that was about supporting Mr. Trump.
I do not know if the owner removed that flag or whether it fell to the elements after two years because no one opened the door to answer that question for me. But it did make me wonder, one week after the election, when plenty of his voters blamed him for the red wave that fell short, whether that sentiment faded for some of them. Could it be that some or many of Mr. Trump’s die-hards were ready to move on?
What made Mr. Trump inspire voters in places like central Appalachia is that he recognized their strengths, which had been long ignored and often ridiculed by the cultural elite. The media, the political parties, the corporations, Hollywood and academia looked down their noses at ordinary people who live here and basically anywhere more than 20 minutes outside of major metropolitan areas.
These people, however, have their pride. They still hold dear the resourcefulness their parents and grandparents taught them to survive when economic lows creep into their hometowns. They know how to hunt for their meat and smoke it, raise chickens, keep a family budget and work all day with their hands. They rarely expected a handout, let alone believed they were entitled to one or entitled to anything at all.
While many of those voters were a generation away from some of those traditions or crafts their parents practiced, they were still very much part of their cultural identity. Their coalition formed long before Mr. Trump descended that escalator in 2015. He was never the cause; they were already there, just waiting for the right person to speak up for them. He was the result.
They showed up and voted in the midterm elections in 2006 against the Republican establishment. Some of them voted for President Obama in 2008 because of his aspirational message, then voted Republican two years later because he did not live up to the ideals he had run on.
They were uninspired by Senator Romney in 2012, so they sat back — Mr. Obama became the rare president who earned fewer votes in his reelection than he did in his first run. Yet they showed up in force in the 2014 midterm elections, and by 2016, they had settled on Mr. Trump as the only one who understood their potential.
His message was about them, not him. And it worked.
By 2020, that message was all about him. After the election, it was even more about him. But the voters didn’t leave in the way political observers thought they would because there was no one there to fill that vacuum. So, they stayed.
That all started to unravel as governors in Georgia, Florida and New Hampshire showed their prowess in taking on the cultural curators while still being able to govern. When all three of them, along with Governor DeWine in Ohio, won massively in their home states last week, some voters started voicing out loud they were ready to move on.
A lot of them stayed home last Tuesday because of Mr. Trump’s decision to make the midterm election results all about him. They worried his picks would be beholden to his every whim rather than what was important to them, and the red wave died on the vine.
In short, what Mr. Trump started to get wrong is what the media have always gotten wrong about these voters. They do not live by a credo filled with resentment and grievances. Their aspirations are about their communities, families and their future, and that is how they vote.
There is an important nuance in that movement away from Mr. Trump. It is not because they do not appreciate his policies, nor his ability to make people feel it is OK to feel patriotic, nor his impact on the Supreme Court — every one of those supporters interviewed in the past week deeply appreciates that — it’s just that they are ready to move forward.
This is my final post for the week: enjoy your Thanksgiving.
My final admonition is to ignore those posts and broadcasts about how to talk about politics with your family members at the Thanksgiving table. Please repeat after me: We all need a break from politics. If your crazy aunt or uncle starts yelling “threat to democracy!” or “stolen election!” at the table, repeat that mantra.
Let’s be thankful for our faith traditions, family, country, liberty, and blessings. And maybe read the first Thanksgiving Proclamation by President George Washington.
By the President of the United States of America. A Proclamation.
Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor—and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me “to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”
Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be—That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks—for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation—for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war—for the great degree of tranquillity, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed—for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted—for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.
And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions—to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually—to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed—to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord—To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and us—and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.
Given under my hand at the City of New-York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Enjoyed today’s column.