July 4, 2023

“Loser. Loser. Loser,” was the attack leveled by 2024 GOP hopeful Chris Christie (R-NJ) at former President and current GOP frontrunner Donald Trump, describing the electoral shortcomings for the Republican party under Trump in the 2018, 2020, and 2022 elections. Although Christie is the longest of long shots based on current polling data, he is hardly alone in questioning Trump’s electability. Ben Shapiro, one of the most popular commentators in the conservative movement, has noted that “[m]any Republicans still think of Trump as a winner, even after his losses in the 2018 midterm election, 2020 presidential election, 2021 Georgia Senate races and 2022 midterms. When they don’t, he drops in the polls, as in December 2022… It will be [GOP candidate Ron] DeSantis’ job to remind Republican voters that Trump has won precisely one election in the last seven years; it will be the job of Republican voters to acknowledge that reality.” Though perhaps offensive to diehard conservative voters, Shapiro’s warning is not without merit: polling data indicates that Trump is particularly unpopular among independent voters, who claim that he is too caustic and divisive. A major fly in the ointment for the anti-Trump argument, however, is that despite constant media attacks from both the Left and the Right, along with multiple lawsuits and indictments, Trump possesses a commanding lead in the current 2024 polls.

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Sobering Statistics

Of course, the commentator class may be right: Donald Trump may very well lose in 2024, just as he lost in 2020. What they overlook, however, is that if that happens, he will be no different than most other Republican presidential candidates since 1988. Indeed, only two Republicans have won the presidency since 1992. Moreover, the GOP has only won the popular vote once in that time. Although GOP commentators love to demonize former President Barack Obama, they often fail to mention that he absolutely mopped the floor with moderate, supposedly more palatable GOP candidates John McCain and Mitt Romney in 2008 and 2012, respectively. Remember when McCain (whose “bomb bomb bomb Iran” comment was far more offensive than anything Donald Trump ever said on the campaign trail), got destroyed by a one-term senator by a margin of 365-173, indicating an overwhelming rejection of neoconservative interventionist foreign policy? And then Mitt Romney, who was unwilling to fight back or even defend himself against ludicrous attacks of being sexist and homophobic, once again embarrassed the GOP through a 332-206 drubbing? (Don’t forget that Christie himself helped out here, effectively campaigning for Obama in the final days of the election.) Instead of learning from these shellackings, the GOP establishment decided to further insult its base by pushing former Florida governor Jeb Bush as its nominee, before Donald Trump upended the entire conservative movement in 2016. In a few short years, the Bushes, McCains, and Romneys of the world went from being GOP kingmakers to afterthoughts who were not event present at the 2016 Republican Party national convention. And for all the conservative commentators whining about the Biden administration’s many failures, let’s not forget that his presidency was enabled in part by prominent figures in the pre-2016 Republican party.

The “Loser. Loser. Loser.” Myth

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There is no sugar-coating it: the GOP was not as successful as hoped in the 2018-2022 elections. But let’s take a closer look: in 2018, the GOP lost its House majority. However, what Christie and others fail to mention is that Trump was only the third sitting president in over 100 years to gain Senate seats, a significant accomplishment. In the 2020 election, although the GOP failed to retake the house and lost the presidency, the GOP significantly outperformed polling expectations in congressional races. In 2022, the GOP reclaimed the majority in the House. However, Trump-endorsed candidates such as Hershel Walker (R-GA) and Mehmet Oz (R-PA) were defeated soundly in what appeared to be very winnable Senate races, which reflected very poorly on Trump at the national level. However, other factors suggest that the GOP struggles extended far beyond Trump. Incumbency appears to have played a major role in the 2022 races: in the Senate, all incumbents in swing states won re-election, and the lone flip was in Pennsylvania, where sitting GOP Senator Pat Toomey declined to run for re-election. Additionally, GOP candidates also underperformed in races in which Trump was not involved. For example, Tiffany Smiley (R-WA) was expected to be competitive with incumbent Sen. Patti Murray (D-WA) based upon polling data, yet the Democrat won in a landslide. The same polling trend was observed in Colorado, yet the Democratic incumbent again won handily. Perhaps most significantly, Adam Laxalt,  the GOP candidate who led his Nevada Senate race all summer according to polling data, lost to his Democratic opponent. These races can hardly be blamed on Trump. The GOP suffered other disappointments as well: a three-way race in the Oregon gubernatorial election was supposed to swing to the GOP but did not; semi-conservative Los Angeles mayoral candidate Rick Caruso was supposed to be competitive with liberal Karen Bass, but was defeated; GOP candidate Allan Fung was supposed to beat incumbent Seth Magaziner to flip RI-2, but did not. In other words, the GOP candidates generally underperformed across the country, not just in Trump-endorsed races.

But what about the 2020 special election in Georgia? Surely Trump’s suggestion of a rigged election cost the GOP control of the Senate during the runoffs? Maybe. But it must also be noted that the GOP incumbents in Georgia, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler ,were both extraordinarily weak candidates who were embroiled in insider stock trading scandals. Perdue’s unpopularity in the state was further highlighted in the 2022 gubernatorial primary; Trump, who supposedly had enough influence in Georgia to control the 2020 Senate race, could not push Perdue past the 22% mark in the GOP primary. In other words, perhaps the 2020 special election losses in Georgia were less about GOP voters buying into Trump’s claims of voter fraud and more about feeling deflated about the 2020 general election; holding the Senate seems extraordinarily important to the political commentator class, but may be less of a consolation prize to Georgia voters who felt bitter over seeing Trump lose to a braindead radical leftist.

Non-Trump Candidates Must Make Arguments Beyond “Electability”

And therein lies the main disconnect between conservative commentators and the GOP base. Winning is important, but winning isn’t everything. If the GOP’s electoral strategy was to attract as many moderate independent voters as possible, then Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) would be the current frontrunner, not Trump or DeSantis; in other words, you would nominate a candidate just to the right of Biden. In practice, of course, Collins would never be a viable Republican candidate; without appealing to the GOP base, the GOP has no hope. For years, the GOP was told to accept moderates such as McCain, Bush, and Romney in the name of electability. For years, the GOP has largely been unsuccessful at the national level. Whether or not Trump is the most electable GOP candidate for 2024 is a subject worthy of great debate that will continue between now and 2024; what is not up for debate, however, is that any Republican who hopes to retake the White House must be able to win over Trump voters. Pitching a candidate based on “electability” thus rings hollow: after all, at some point principles must trump policies. Moderate Trump critics Asa Hutchinson, Chris Christie, or Francis Suarez would presumably appeal more to moderates and independents than either Trump or DeSantis, and, based purely on policy, would all very likely be an improvement over Joe Biden. Yet none of these candidates have generated any excitement because they would fail to motivate the conservative base. Therein lies the major challenge for GOP contenders hoping to defeat Trump: winning over those Trump voters who have a legitimate distrust of a party establishment that, for the past 20 years, has pushed ineffective, milquetoast candidates like the Bushes, McCains, and Romneys of the world on them in the name of electability.

J. Allen Cartwright writes about interplay of politics with cultural and scientific institutions.  He can be followed on Parler at @jallencartwright

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