After taking a licking in the state of Georgia along with multiple gubernatorial primaries, Donald Trump is picking up the pieces of his shattered world and trying to figure out what the future holds for him.
At the same time, political prognosticators are trying to determine exactly what Trump's mixed endorsement record in the GOP primaries means. For Democrats, the question is: What lessons can we learn from those races that could potentially be extrapolated out to the general election?
The most apt takeaway given Trump's mixed record isn't that Trumpism is fading. In fact, it's thriving in the GOP and gave way to breakaway candidates who outperformed even when Trump didn't endorse them (or at least not until the last minute in order to pad his win/loss record). The most obvious example of that is the Pennsylvania GOP gubernatorial nominee, state Sen. Doug Mastriano, a right-wing Christian nationalist, election denier, and Jan. 6 participant whom Trump hitched his wagon to in the final days of the race.
Kathy Barnette, another diehard MAGA radical, lost her Pennsylvania Senate bid against Trump endorsee Mehmet Oz and former hedge fund CEO David McCormick—but not before claiming some 25% of the vote. Barnette, who was far more "on brand" MAGA than Oz, surprised everyone in the final weeks of the campaign and quite possibly ate into Oz's totals to the point of denying him an outright win.
The point is Trumpism, or the MAGA movement, is way bigger than Trump at this point. Candidates don’t even need Trump’s explicit endorsement to ride that wave—particularly if one is overtly extremist and radical in both temperament and tone. MAGA voters want "the vibe"—the combativeness and bluster—as never-Trumper Sarah Longwell pointed out on her podcast The Focus Group.
Where Trump's endorsement does make a difference, however, is "in a vacuum," as former GOP operative and Bulwark contributor Tim Miller pointed out on the same podcast. When several candidates are facing off in a race where none of them are particularly well-known quantities, Trump's extra push can be decisive, as it was for former anti-Trumper J.D. Vance in Ohio's GOP Senate primary. In that race, Josh Mandel was arguably the true MAGA radical, but Vance played the game just fine, won Trump's endorsement, and prevailed by a comfortable 8-point margin in a race where there was no clear favorite before Trump weighed in.
However, when the candidates are known quantities and have a record to run on, such as Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp or Idaho Gov. Brad Little, Trump's ability to play kingmaker fades to dust. Both of Trump's picks—former Sen. David Perdue of Georgia and Idaho Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin—went full MAGA against the sitting Republican governors and yet couldn't get anywhere within striking distance.
A lot of ink has been devoted in recent weeks to making the claim that either Trump's grip on the GOP is absolute or, alternatively, that Trump's grip on the party is slipping. Neither one of those is exactly right.
Trumpism and the MAGA movement have completely overrun the party and still control it, but not Trump himself. Sometimes, Trump manages to figure out where that MAGA parade is headed and jumps in front of it, but sometimes he misses the mark.
Either way, Trump is still far and away the most powerful Republican figure in the country, despite the fact that he's often chasing the movement he brought to the forefront of American politics. All the polling shows that, and he will be the Republican to beat if and when he announces a 2024 presidential bid. The only person who poses any threat to Trump whatsoever is Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. Mike Pence, Chris Christie, and Mike Pompeo are all afterthoughts.
"I haven’t seen any data that showed any of these people are beating him anywhere," said pollster Tony Fabrizio, who conducted hypothetical GOP primary matchups in five different states. "In fact, the person that comes closest is DeSantis, and all the rest of these people chattering on the sidelines can’t even break into double digits.”
So what lessons, if any, can Democrats draw from the way GOP primaries have shaken out? The main one is: Be bold in defining yourself and your opponent and make it a real choice between your competing visions for the country. Trump's lesser-known candidates managed to emerge in races where, all things being equal, there wasn't a persuasive argument to vote against them. Therefore, Trump's endorsement held more weight.
Plus, the candidates who won in races where Trump actively campaigned against them did so because the choices were clear: Here's who I am, here’s my record, and here's what the other person is selling. They defined themselves and the other candidate and put the choice to voters.
Obviously, the general electorate will be a different test case altogether. But the takeaway seems to be that today's politics are much less about policy than values. A candidate listing a bunch of policies doesn't mean much unless those policies point to a candidate's overarching values, which they must continually drive home to voters.
And Democrats should not be afraid in the least to compete on the terrain of values in 2022. Republicans, by almost every measure, represent fringe values driven in large part by white grievance, Christian nationalism, and white replacement theory. Those may be popular within the Republican Party, but they still represent the fringes of the overall electorate, and Democrats need to make that connection perfectly clear to voters.
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