GOP Primary: No Contest— But Can Trump Win A General Election? Will He Drag His Party Down With Him?

Trump’s die-hard supporters are either:

• As bad as he is

• Worse than he is

Molly Ball wrote that “What the GOP’s most loyal voters want, it seems, is pure, uncut Trumpism— with all the baggage and ideological divergence from traditional conservatism that entails… [Yesterday] the party passed up yet another opportunity to turn the page on a polarizing, multiply-indicted fabulist who lost the last election and has never won the popular vote. It is an outcome that distresses those loyal to the party of Ronald Reagan who hoped 2024 would be the party’s opening to step into the future.” This perspective is fine in the deep red rural precincts in Wyoming, and the Texas, Oklahoma and Florida panhandles. But in states where independent swing voters determine election outcomes— Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, New Hampshire, Nevada, Virginia, North Carolina— it’s a recipe for an electoral college catastrophe. 

It’s also likely to be the makings for another anti-red wave congressional sweep for vulnerable Republican incumbents like Mike Lawler (NY), Brandon Williams (NY), Marc Molinaro (NY), Anthony D’Esposito (NY), Nick LaLota (NY), Ken Calvert (CA), Young Kim (CA), David Valadao (CA), John Duarte (CA), Mike Garcia (CA), Michelle Steel (CA), David Schweikert (AZ), Juan Ciscomani (AZ), Anna Paulina Luna (FL), Maria Salazar (FL), Carlos Gimenez (FL), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA), Zach Nunn (IA), Ashley Hinson (IA), Bill Huizenga (MI), John James (MI), Ryan Zinke (MT), Don Bacon (NE), Tom Kean (NJ), Jee Van Drew (NJ), Mike Turner (OH), Lori Chavez-DeRemer (OR), Brian Fitzpatrick (PA), Scott Perry (PA), Nancy Mace (SC), Monica De La Cruz (TX), Tony Gonzales (TX), Jen Kiggans (VA), Rob Wittman (VA), Bryan Steil (WI) and Derrick Van Orden (WI).

Caveat: the picture I just drew is of a blue wave. The DCCC has an unbroken history of backing unelectable GOP-lite candidates which will save many of those Republican incumbents. But if there was no DCCC— or if donors gave directly to candidates and cut the DCCC out entirely— that list would be an obituary for Republican power in Congress.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand... starting with an astute question from Robert Reich: “Why should Trump’s dominance [of the GOP primaries] be surprising? He’s dominated the Republican party since 2016. He dominates by ridiculing opponents, blasting anyone who stands in his way, bullying, browbeating, and bellowing. The media eats it up. He’s outrageous and entertaining… [N]o one should confuse Trump’s performance in the Republican primaries for success in the presidential election. When [normal] Americans actually focus on the presidential election and the stark reality of choosing between Biden and Trump, I expect they will once again choose Biden. Even if Trump is not yet criminally convicted, I doubt that a majority of Americans will want for their president a man who has 91 criminal charges against him, who has been impeached twice, who has orchestrated an attempted coup, who has profited financially while president, who has stolen top-secret documents, and who has been judged to be a rapist.”

Besides, wrote Sam Stein and Natalie Allison— before any votes had been cast in New Hampshire (besides all 6 in Haley’s midnight sweep in Dixville Notch)— that “there’s a whole swath of the Republican electorate and a good chunk of independents who appear firmly committed to not voting for [Trump] in November… [In Iowa] fully 43 percent of Nikki Haley supporters said they would back President Joe Biden over Trump… How big a universe these groups of disaffected voters are could go a long way in determining the next president. But there are signs that, among independents at least, Trump is bleeding. In the New York Times/Siena College poll last month, Biden led Trump among all independents in the poll, 50 percent to 38 percent.”

So why is the GOP about to take a seemingly insane gamble. Short answer: they have no choice… their MAGA base is calling the shots now and the party establishment is just following along, wondering what happens next. Aaron Blake noted yesterday that “Trump is a well-defined, known quantity to American voters. He didn’t crest 47 percent in either of his two campaigns, and both his approval and favorable ratings have pretty consistently hovered around 40 percent. That suggests Trump has a ceiling in the mid- to high 40s, and Biden’s numbers would have to remain down... Republicans can also see with their own eyes how much better a more standard-issue Republican could do. Haley generally polls better than Trump does in general-election matchups with Biden.”

They want their readers to understand that “Polls have shown that a criminal conviction would reduce Trump’s general-election margins by between 5 and 14 points. Even if the swings aren’t that big, this could be decisive, given how close our elections typically are. It’s also important to note that, while political watchers might be familiar with the details of Trump’s indictments, many voters are not… About 6 in 10 independent voters said they had heard only ‘a little’ or ‘nothing at all’ about Trump’s indictments, October polling showed. That’s a lot of voters who don’t seem to have internalized Trump’s conduct but could by the time November comes.”

Trump has never made it easy to stand in his corner. However you feel about him, there’s no question that he creates unnecessary problems for himself (see: taking the classified documents), which he often needlessly provokes, and that his off-the-cuff style can go very wrong.

Lately, Trump has made clear how unwieldy he could be over the next nine-plus months:

• He mixed up Haley and former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, echoing his repeated mixing up of Biden, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

• Trump has taken to casting Haley, whose parents immigrated from India, as less American. After repeatedly alluding to her given first name, Nimarata, he explained it to Fox News this weekend by citing “wherever she may come from.” (An example of how something like this might play: When Trump in 2016 suggested a judge of Mexican heritage was inherently biased against him, two-thirds of Americans labeled it a racist comment. About 6 in 10 Americans also said they were bothered by Trump’s “birther” campaign against Obama.)

• He has repeatedly flirted with a more authoritarian vision for a second term, arguing for full presidential immunity even for “events that ‘cross the line.’” That’s something that many of his backers support but that Americans writ large appear pretty uncomfortable with. (Americans oppose Trump’s claim to full presidential immunity 2-1, and an even larger margin says presidents should always follow the law.)

All of this is from the past week alone, and there’s a compelling case to be made that Americans aren’t terribly familiar with it.

As The Atlantic’s McKay Coppins wrote recently: “These days, Trump exists in many Americans’ minds as a hazy silhouette— formed by preconceived notions and outdated impressions— rather than as an actual person who’s telling the country every day who he is and what he plans to do with a second term.”

That is a luxury of a man who hasn’t had to run a full-fledged campaign for a second term yet. It is not a luxury he is likely to benefit from come November.

Yesterday, A.B. Stoddard wrote that Biden’s much-discussed, shockingly poor approval numbers won’t matter much because Trump is far more disliked by general election. He noted that “a Marist poll last week showed Biden beating Trump in New Hampshire by 7 points, and by 3 points with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. running as a third-party candidate. The president’s approval in the Granite State is a dismal 38 percent.”