I laughed when I saw Politico’s headline: Indiana mystery man upends bloody GOP Senate primary. That’s a reference to businessman Mike Braun who looks like he might actually beat out conservative U.S. Reps. Luke Messer and Todd Rokita and earn the right to take on vulnerable Democratic incumbent Sen. Joe Donnelly in November. The contest has been bruising and personal, but it’s also notable for the strategies that have been employed. All three of the candidates believe that they’re engaged in a contest to convince Indiana Republican voters that they’ll be a better friend to the president than the alternatives.
Each of the three Republicans has tried to claim the Trump mantle. Braun, doubling down on the outsider message, says in his closing argument TV ad that he’s running “because President Trump paved the way.” In one of his television spots, Rokita dons a Make America Great Again hat. Messer’s office said last week he is “actively gathering support” in Congress to nominate Trump for next year’s Nobel Peace Prize for bringing North Korea and South Korea to the negotiating table to end the Korean War.
This is related to another issue. As far back as April 8th, the New York Times was reporting that many Republican strategists think the best way to mobilize conservative voters for the midterms is to use the prospect of impeachment (if the Republicans’ lose control of either chamber of Congress) as a motivator. By the end of April, this idea had cemented itself into common wisdom.
The degree to which Trump maintains support with the Republican base has been exaggerated but he’s definitely more popular with them than Congress. On the other hand, there’s an old saying that everyone hates Congress but most people like their own representatives. And this is certainly backed up by the consistent success rate of most incumbents running for reelection.
There’s a tension in the impeachment strategy because it isn’t broadly applicable. Most vulnerable Republicans are running for office in districts where the president’s approval numbers are under water. We’ve already seen the Democrats win some state and federal elections in districts that voted heavily for Trump in 2016. That indicates that a lot of Trump voters have already abandoned him or at least are not willing to transfer their allegiance to him to other Republicans.
The impeachment strategy is aimed at the latter group. It’s a way of saying “you may not like me, but you need me to protect the president.” It makes sense in a Republican primary, but I think it’s a much less effective strategy in a general election. The degree to which it can be effective at all depends on the characteristics of the district, but it’s premised on the idea that the Republican candidate can win if only he can get all the Trump voters to turn out for an election in which Trump is not on the ballot.
The first problem is that they’ll never achieve that level of turnout. The second problem is that Trump’s base isn’t as big as it was. Looking, for example, at the recent Monmouth College poll of Obama-Trump voters in key Midwestern districts, I see about a twenty to twenty-five percent drop-off in support for the president.
The poll surveyed Obama-Trump voters — persons who voted for President Obama in 2012 and then President Trump in 2016 — in three battleground Midwestern congressional districts:
Iowa’s 1st Congressional District, located in the northeastern part of the state and with a Republican incumbent; Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, located in the southwestern part of the state and with a Democratic incumbent; Minnesota’s 8th Congressional District, located in the Iron Range northeastern part of the state and with an open seat.
In the three districts polled, strong majorities of voters say they will definitely or probably vote for the president in 2020 (Iowa-1: 63%; Wisconsin-3: 61%; Minnesota-8: 68%). The shares of those who said they will definitely or probably not vote for Trump ranges from 21-25%.
That’s a significant loss of support and it can’t be made up by raising the prospect of Trump’s impeachment. It’s probably worse than that, too, because while it’s impressive that Trump is still holding on to more than sixty percent of his voters who cast a ballot for Barack Obama, they’re the least reliable voters in his coalition and the least likely to have a strong preference for a more traditionally Republican candidate. It’s unlikely that a GOP candidate for Congress will get all of their votes no matter how much they cuddle up to the president.
It’s also almost a given that Trump’s problems will become more pronounced between now and the election and that more people will see impeachment as an appropriate remedy for his presidency. Being on the record as being implacably opposed to accountability in the Russia matter may become much more of a vulnerability than an asset.
The impeachment strategy therefore makes some sense in the short-term if you’re trying to win a primary for Senate in Indiana. But it’s not a good or safe strategy for blunting the Democrats’ enthusiasm advantage in the fall.
If all the Republican primary contenders are saying they’ll protect DT, then doesn’t that neutralize the claim?
I agree, there is no way to know what headlines will dominate in the week leading up to the general. DT’s usual mastery of the news cycle wouldn’t help him much if he is the butt of all coverage. That will put some serious pressure on the R candidates as they struggle to show their support for DT. Ugly prospect for them.
Table stakes. That’s the ante before the hand is even dealt.
Spend the summer and fall talking about Trump’s impeachment.
Sounds like a great plan!
That’s just Obama>Trump voters, though. Trump only got a couple more percentage points than Romney, and these are fickle voters probably less likely to turn out for an off-year election in any case.
However, I tend to think the Cohen material is going to provide a stream of damaging revelations all summer. By Fall, defending Trump could be toxic. The bad news is Trump has just hired a good lawyer. The good news is it’s probably too late.
I’m seeing conflicting reports about who Flood would be replacing: DT’s personal lawyer Cobb, or White House Counsel McGahn.
Flood maybe the first atty the donald has hired that could pass a back ground check.
But I have to say that given his list of clientele the phrase “all case and no cause” was invented specifically to describe him. Yes, everyone is entitled to an attorney, blah blah, but….
And since I don’t want to start a second post, I can’t find a single Democrat who is making impeachment a central part (or a part at all, really) of his or her campaign, and Pelosi and Schumer have both explicitly come out against it, so I really don’t see how it’s a winning strategy for the GOP. Maybe it’ll be another brainstorm like that GOP “autopsy” from a few years ago.
Yep, the subject of impeachment will be expanded to impeachment for which crime. Obstruction, collusion, money laundering, bank fraud, misuse of campaign funds….the list is endless.
The logical opposite of “Defend The President, Vote Republican!” is “Impeach the President, Vote Democrat.” So I agree such a Republican message will likely put more Democrats in the voting booth than Republicans come the general election.
To date, President Stupid et al. have only delivered more austerity and insecurity to American citizens with a net worth under 5 million, including many of their own voters. As that 20 point erosion may by suggesting, only so many will forgive Trump as long as he keeps rage tweeting about brown people and making liberals cry.
Still, the forces that put the Orange Shit Gibbon in office are still active, powerful, and working hard to keep this administration rolling, so all this may not matter.
It might not be good or safe, but I don’t think there is a better strategy for them than that.
A complication is: How many of the “Obama-Trump” voters are actually Obama-Trump voters? It’s well known that usually more people say they voted for the winner than actually did; and in addition a Romney-Trump voter might see benefit in masquerading as an Obama-Trump voter to skew the result. Add in the fact that there aren’t all that many Obama-Trump voters and the result could be heavily distorted.
Take just Iowa, which Obama won twice and Hillary lost worse than she lost Texas.
There are a huge number of Obama-Trump voters. The problem is that liberals/progressives simply cannot wrap their minds around this fact because it does not compute for them.
It reminds of how I was disbelieved when I said early on in the pre-primary period that there was a huge overlap of potential Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders voters. That turned out to be true, as Sanders hoovered up Paulistas after Paul dropped out. The anti-state, anti drug-war, anti war on terror contingent doesn’t get into the details of policy or distinguish between libertarian and socialist critiques of the U.S. system. If they vote at all, it’s to blow up the system, which is why many Sanders voters went for Trump.
In any case, Obama and Trump were alternatives to Clinton, and they shared a lot of voters.
Don’t forget that Paul and Sanders overlap is made up of a large subset that are anti-immigrant and anti-POC, which is why they scooted on over to Trump, so easily.
Yes, I remember a piece you wrote for WM or here about a district that went for Obama, and then went for Trump hard. Except, you didn’t point out that since 2008 they have gone hard for the Republican Party outside of the Presidential elections. That district strongly supported Joni Ernst and Branstead. In addition, you refuse to acknowledge that Iowa voters might have felt more comfortable with Obama since he was from a neighboring state. It reminds me of southern states that one last time went for a Democrat after the Civil Rights legislation of the 1960s, because the candidate was the child of a popular politician from the previous era or had some other tie that made voters feel they could trust the candidate not to rock the racial status quo. Those candidates could last 1-3 decades, but once they left office, no Democrat had more than longshot chance outside of a wave like 2006 or 1974.
Lastly, Obama had the benefit of favorable economic circumstances as a challenger from the out of power party in 2008, that didn’t exist in 2016. He also had two candidates in McCain and Romney that didn’t play as well in Iowa as Trump did. McCain was a RINO soft on immigration, and Romney was a Mormon which is considered a cult in that part of the country.