Three Problems On the Right
"So interesting that the Democrats are looking hard at the Senate races in both Missouri and Texas,” former President Trump wrote Sunday on his social media platform. “Josh and Ted must be very careful, stranger things have happened!!!” Neither senator has endorsed a candidate in the Republican presidential primary and many interpreted Trump’s post as a threat for not yet publicly endorsing his campaign. Cruz previously said he was staying out of the primary because he didn’t want to alienate any of the Republican base. In case you think he has no reason to worry: I live in one of the most conservative counties in Texas (the last major red urban county) and Cruz lost it to Beto — in a state where John Cornyn won more votes than Trump. Threats can’t be empty.
It’s not what Republicans should be focusing on, anyway.
As I discussed on my radio program earlier today (simulcast excerpt here; full below), I want to win in 2024. I care who is on the ticket, which is why in this free republic I’ve very transparently exercised my right to preference in the Republican primary, but regardless, I want to win the general and do everything in the meantime to protect that possibility. If Republicans were serious about winning they would do several things right now:
Stop allowing the public to be led astray by shoddy polling.
The left and some on the right want you to believe that the same polls that were wrong in 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022 are suddenly trustworthy now. To hold polling as an unquestionably solid measure of sentiment requires the same blind faith it takes to believe that surgical masks work to prevent the transmission of a respiratory virus particles small enough to breeze through the masks’s filter. Citing push poll with questionable sample sizes and mythology is fine if you want to try to win a social media argument which is what too many are focused on instead of winning an election. Independents, who determine the margins by which elections are won or lost, don’t give a rat’s backside about whichever survey anyone wants to cherry-pick for confirmation bias on Facebook.
Surveys are also extremely expensive to undertake, with thousands of calls made just to cobble together 500 or 800 respondents, to say nothing of navigating the dying land lines and rules on calling call phones.
If the polls showed Biden trailing as badly as some being promoted do, Democrats/the system would yank him for Newsom in a heartbeat. They already changed their party’s primary bylaws governing replacement candidates so the possibility is there. If the Deep State is powerful enough to alter elections would they also not be still as powerful to simply swap out a deteriorating candidate for a younger one? The GOP must work to develop solid, reliable polling.
The GOP/RNC must have solutions for split-ticket voting and low voter turnout.
Texas became one of a handful of states to end straight-ticket voting in 2020, meaning that with one mark on your ballot you could vote for the entire slate of your party’s candidates. Coupled with a depressed turnout, it’s exactly why John Cornyn, an unpopular moderate Republican senator, received more votes than Donald Trump. It wasn’t due to fraud, it was precisely due to independent and Republican voters choosing down-ticket GOP candidates and either someone (or no one) else at the top. The existence of split-ticket voting isn’t evidence of fraud and it’s disastrous for future potential Republican victories to assume so. Nationally, it was the big reason why the much-hyped red wave never happened.
This isn’t to say that fraud doesn’t exist, I know too well that it does. I’ve personally had to wrangle with dismissing a vote illegally cast citing my home address and it wasn’t easy. The question has never been if there is fraud, but rather if there is enough fraud to rock on-purpose decentralized election process.
The GOP doesn’t have a solution for the split-ticket carnage. Instead they’ve made a mess of what should’ve been easy races and most recently fumbled with losses in Wisconsin and Virgina. They also don’t have a solution for improving voter turnout, a problem that cost us the senate in the Georgia runoff. When Republicans lose winnable races it always comes down to two things: low voter turnout as a result of candidate unfavorability. The party must develop new, effective outreach.
Stop being afraid and show leadership.
The GOP is afraid of its own base right now. They chose to be MIA than risk angering one faction or another by demonstrating decisive leadership.
Lorraine has done a good job every week of breaking down the Trump legal drama. Between the New York witch-hunt and the more legitimate concerns regarding the classified docs case. Regardless yours or anyone’s opinion on the veracity of the accusations, the Trump campaign owes voters an explanation of how it plans to campaign, if he wins the primary, or perform admin duties, were he to win the general.
He also owes voters answers and a frank discussion on vaccines, lockdowns, and mandates. A lot has happened since he debated in 2016. Softball questions from friendlies and spineless influencers are no substitute for a full and frank discussion and voters deserve one. Knowing what he knows now would he have locked down the economy? Encouraged vaccines? Supported mandates? Fired Fauci? It’s not a “betrayal” of a candidate to whom we owe no allegiance to ask these questions — it’s a betrayal of the voter to discourage asking such questions, the voter to whom every allegiance is owed. Do not be cowed into thinking that tough questioning of any candidate means opposition to said candidate or support for another. Do not be PSYOP’d into forfeiting your God-given rights as a voter. No one is above voter accountability and candidates must prove themselves every election, which is when the voters call for it. How is the RNC empowering the voter with the candidates seeking their party nomination? Party leadership should demand full participation and ensure a narrowing the field after Iowa and New Hampshire.
I talked about all of this on today’s program:
Yep!