GOP base strategy works with hardcore Republican voters, but not with normal peopleThis morning when Trump tried bragging about his magnificence, the UN General Assembly burst out in sustained, audible laughter. No, Señor T, you're not in Kansas anymore. (Ironically, even Kansas may not be Kansas anymore.)Ugly monkey: "In less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country."World Leaders: laughter.Ugly monkey: "It's so true."World Leaders: more laughter.Ugly monkey: "I didn't expect that reaction, but that's okay," smirking as though waiting for someone to feed him a banana-- or hand him a submachine gun.Republican Party strategists have come to realize that appealing to independent voters this year is a rabbit hole for their candidates and they are now doubling down on getting out their own base and virtually ceding the independents-- as much as a third of the vote in many places-- to the Democrats. Our election coverage here at DWT has centered on independents ability to decide the midterms. GOP strategy is to now run such vile negative advertising as to just discourage independents from voting, not to get them to vote for Republican candidates.At Axios Monday morning, Caitlin Owens outlined a Republican strategy to save hardcore red districts and basically abandon all swing districts. "With the midterm elections fast approaching and Democrats riding a clear advantage on health care, many Republicans are nevertheless doubling down on largely unpopular ideas like repealing the Affordable Care Act and cutting Medicare," she wrote."This strategy may seem counterintuitive on its face. However, it likely reveals that the party has all but abandoned independent voters this year and instead is focused on turning out its base. Republican leaders have recently become more public about the likelihood of trying again on ACA repeal, whereas a few months ago it was largely a private assumption among the party.
• Vice President Mike Pence told reporters in Wisconsin that if the GOP candidate wins the Senate seat there, the effort will be revived, per The Hill. “We made an effort to fully repeal and replace ObamaCare and we'll continue, with Leah Vukmir in the Senate, we'll continue to go back to that," he said.• “We need to win this election and then get more seats next year" before trying again, GOP Whip Steve Scalise told the AP.
Is that a good idea in Wisconsin, a state where independents decide elections? It may be a good strategy for Mississippi but there isn't a single poll-- including partisan Republican polls that no one takes seriously-- that shows Vukmir with a pathway to victory. FiveThirtyEight gives her a 1 in 40 chance to beat progressive Democratic incumbent Tammy Baldwin (in a state Trump won-- albeit narrowly and with Kremlin help-- in 2016.As Owens explained, "ACA repeal only resonates well with one group of voters: registered Republicans. 'It’s all about the base, because as far as I can tell, they’ve lost the independents, there’s no one left to woo,' said conservative economist Doug Holtz-Eakin, a former campaign aide to John McCain. 'The Republicans face a very odd problem…when you ask actually registered voters what they want to do with the future of the ACA, no one wants to repeal and replace it except the Republicans, which the majority do,' said Robert Blendon of Harvard's School of Public Health. 'If you are looking at the aggregate, you can't imagine why you’d even mention it. But if you’re trying to encourage your own voters… then they're trying to say that we would come back and try to do something,' Blendon added."Worse yet for the GOP's election hopes among normal voters, the Trump Regime is now talking about cuts to Social Security and Medicare again. Owens reminds us that Trumpanzee's top economic advisor, drug addict and crackpot TV personality Larry Kudlow, "recently said that the administration will probably look at entitlement cuts next year." She brought up 3 very vulnerable Republican incumbents-- in districts with huge numbers of independent voters-- who are going along with Kudlow and Trump are likely to lose their seats because of it. John Faso, for example, was keeping his seat in play. It is now starting to trend, ever so slightly, towards Anthony Delgado. Faso is making noises that will make independents (and seniors) see him as a threat to Social Security and Medicare. Fine for the GOP base-- but NY-19 is not some backward rural district in Oklahoma or Alabama. The PVI is supposedly a deceptive R+2 but Obama won it both times he ran and it was only Hillary's lousy campaign and flaws as a candidate that gave Trump his win there (50.8% to 44.0%).Peter Roskam is another one the need to rein in spending on entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security. That's a bad idea in Chicagoland. IL-06 gave Obama a win over McCain, Romney a win over Obama and Hillary a 7 point win over Trump (50.2% to 43.2%). The PVI is also a deceptive R+2. The Democratic candidate, Sean Casten, isn't especially strong but it's a neck-and-neck race that Roskam's to lose by talking about cutting Social Security and Medicare.Very similar story in Texas' 7th district (Houston), where the Democrats nominated a weak candidate, Lizzie Fletcher, but where Hillary narrowly edged Trump (48.5% to 47.1%). Incumbent John Culberson is a poor campaigner. Fletcher has outraised him, $2,312,615 to $2,007,183 and he will be committing political suicide if he embraces-- as he appears to be doing-- an all base strategy. Fletcher isn't capable of winning this race; Culberson is very capable of losing it.Again, Owens explained the risk to Republicans like Culberson: Although the bet is that the GOP base is concerned with deficits, "as soon as the other side switches to 'you're going to cut back Medicare and Social Security,' you're on the wrong side," Blendon said. "The highest turnout rates are among people above 60." Like clockwork, the DNC blasted out an email criticizing Kudlow's comments, saying that he "admitted that Republicans will try to cut vital programs relied upon by millions of working families."
