Leave it to the Republicans to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. With an unpopular Democratic president in the White House and that president’s party torn by the difficult decision of whether to support victims of murderous terrorism, the Republican Party still managed to take a blow in the elections outside the year. Once again stumbling over the issues of abortion, former President Donald Trump and a general sheen of futility, GOP candidates can’t get out of the way.
Across the country, Republicans who saw victory within reach delivered generally disappointing performances on Tuesday. As in last year’s midterm elections, they struggled in the shadow of the U.S. Supreme Court Dobbs decision annulled Roe v. Wade and making abortion a political issue again. Like a dog finally getting a hold of a car, they felt burdened by their achievement.
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Hung again on abortion
“Republican challenger Daniel Cameron’s bet failed to deliver in rural counties,” the spokesperson said Louisville Courier-Journal reported on the Trump-backed candidate’s inability to unseat the Democratic incumbent in Kentucky, who gave 62 percent of his votes to the Republican presidential candidate in 2020. “The results also showed the Republican candidate’s own political baggage — whether his strict anti-abortion views or his role in the Breonna Taylor case — sunk him in urban centers and suburban areas.
“Youngkin is a relatively popular, middle-of-the-road politician who probably could have succeeded in flipping the Senate if not for the abortion issue,” said Olusoji Akomolafe, chairman of the political science department at Norfolk State University , to the newspaper. Richmond Times Dispatch after GOP Governor Glenn Younkin not only failed in his bid to capture the Senate but also lost the House.
Ohio voters went to work enshrining reproductive rights in the state constitution with a higher percentage of the vote — 56 percent — than the 53 percent who voted for Donald Trump in 2020 (they also voted to legalize marijuana, which it became a good option). night for personal freedom).
“A year after an expected ‘red wave’ turned into a ripple, conservatives’ 2023 election messaging sought to adapt to the emerging reality,” ABC News’ Rick Klein noted in the aftermath. “Election Day 2023 instead continued a losing streak for conservatives on abortion-related issues that began virtually the moment the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade last year — and extended to states that are blue, red and decidedly purple .”
Democrats “gave Republicans another beating with their bipartisan issue of abortion rights and fear and loathing of MAGAGOP,” noted. The Wall Street Journal’s editorial. “Republicans have a brand perception problem.”
Blown opportunity
This is notable considering that midterm and off-year elections are often referendums on the party in power, and President Joe Biden has been deeply unpopular for more than two years; the FiveThirtyEight The poll average currently has the president’s approval at 38.6 percent and disapproval at 55.7 percent.
At the same time, leading Democrats are publicly battling over whether to support Israel in its fight against Hamas following the terrorist organization’s bloody attack on that country on October 7; party progressives support the Palestinian cause. Polls show growing support among the general public for the only Jewish majority state.
Yet that did not translate into greater ballot support for the Republican Party.
It’s true that Republicans are pointing to evidence that Trump could beat Biden in a hypothetical rematch in the 2024 presidential election. The New York Times/Siena poll: “President Biden trails Donald J. Trump in five of six key battleground states, a year ahead of the 2024 election.”
Hindered by Trump
But that reflects how weak Biden is rather than any real strength for the likely Republican nominee. The FiveThirtyEight According to the polling average, Trump is consistently underwater, with his favorable rating currently at 40.9 percent and his unfavorable at 54.9 percent. It is possible that the former president can beat the current president, because he almost someone could be.
The Time/Siena poll shows Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley Also Beating Joe Biden in swing states, with Nikki Haley winning all six.
A subsequent Marquette poll shows that Trump narrowly lost to Biden in Wisconsin, which went for Biden in 2020. But both DeSantis and Haley defeated the incumbent: DeSantis by two points and Haley by nine.
“Mr Biden and Mr Trump are both deeply – and equally – unpopular,” says Shane Goldmacher of The New York Times commented on his newspaper’s opinion polls. “But voters who overwhelmingly said the nation was on the wrong track are taking out their frustrations on the president.”
In fact, polls consistently show significant concerns about the prospects of a Biden-Trump rematch, with overwhelming majorities opposed to the idea. When forced to choose between them, voters be able to choose the less unpopular option. But that’s a risky strategy when there’s an opportunity to target candidates and messages not alienating a large part of the electorate.
A ray of hope for the Republican party
Aside from Cameron’s loss in the Kentucky gubernatorial race, the Republican Party did well in that state, with a large down-ballot vote. The vote in Virginia gave Democrats the smallest majority in the House of Representatives and a smaller majority in the Senate. In both cases, better candidates and less extreme reporting on abortion might have made a difference for Republicans, while the majority (69 percent according to Gallup) believe the procedure should be available at least in the first trimester.
Perhaps the vote in Ohio points the way forward. There, marijuana legalization was passed with significant support from the Republican Party — largely from those who consider themselves supporters of the former president.
“To the extent that there is a Trump brand, I think it’s more of a ‘don’t trust the government, leave me alone’ than traditional social conservatives,” said Doug Berman, executive director of the Drug Enforcement and Policy Center in the state of Ohio. University, told the Cincinnati researcher.
That’s the kind of message that could work well with a national electorate that doesn’t like the sitting president and is ready for something different but is put off by the more control-freak aspects of the Republican Party. If Republicans can embrace their “leave me alone” mojo and put the unpopular former president behind them in the past, they might just improve their chances of defeating the even less popular current resident of the White House and his party. defeat.