They must stand against Trumpism as well
Eric Levitz at NY Magazine makes a very smart observation about one possible problem for Democrats going forward if they don’t pay close attention. He discusses the fact that among the ticket splitters were plenty of those white suburban voters who voted Republican for Governor but Democrat for other offices specifically citing the cases of Mike DeWine in Ohio and Brian Kemp in Georgia:
DeWine and Kemp have several things in common. But one of the most conspicuous is that both stumbled into public conflicts with Donald Trump as a result of their refusal to back his denial of the 2020 election results. After Kemp certified his state’s vote count, Trump cast him as one of the MAGA movement’s great betrayers, and recruited a primary challenger to oust the GOP incumbent. DeWine, meanwhile, went on CNN shortly after the 2020 race was called and said that Biden had “clearly” won, and that Trump should begin preparing for a peaceful transition. In response, Trump attempted (though ultimately failed) to find a credible primary challenger to back against DeWine.
In 2022, Republican candidates with strong ties to Donald Trump — and, more specifically, his attempts at election subversion — tended to dramatically underperform other GOP candidates. Given that pattern, it seems plausible that Kemp and DeWine owed some of their success to the aura of “moderation” they secured merely by being (1) objects of Trump’s ire, and (2) opponents of coups.
Which is a concerning precedent for 2024. If all GOP candidates must do to appear “moderate” in the eyes of suburban swing voters is to get into a high-profile fight with Donald Trump, then any Republican who manages to defeat Trump in the 2024 primary would look moderate to that constituency by default.
To be sure, there are plenty of other explanations for Kemp and DeWine’s ability to simultaneously win Biden voters and champion far-right policies. Incumbent governors tend to outperform other candidates. And in 2022, incumbent governors had the benefit of the American Rescue Plan’s largesse: Biden’s COVID stimulus showered state governments with funds, which made it possible for Republican state officials to slash taxes without significantly paring back spending on education or other social programs dear to the middle class. Indeed, both Kemp and DeWine increased funding for public schools with the former implementing a $5,000-a-year salary increase for Georgia teachers. It is possible that these substantive acts of moderation on high-salience state-level issues helped the governors persuade swing voters to look past their extremism on abortion.
Separately, it is also the case that many college-educated voters who reliably support Democrats in presidential elections nevertheless are willing to back Republicans at the gubernatorial level, where doing so can safeguard their property-tax rates (hence, half the governors in blue New England are Republicans). It is possible then that Biden voters’ willingness to back Kemp and DeWine does not signify an openness to supporting ideologically similar politicians for president in 2024.
And yet, given that many of the Democratic Party’s college-educated supporters did not reside in blue America before Trump’s nomination, there is reason to worry about such voters’ willingness to support very right-wing politicians who had public feuds with the ex-president in 2022.
Therefore, Democrats should do everything they can to ensure that Ron DeSantis (or some other conservative rising star) doesn’t get to claim the mantle of “moderation” in 2024, should they emerge as the Republican nominee. Democrats appear to have gotten some mileage out of denouncing “MAGA” Republicans and warning of the threat Trump poses to democracy. But in the coming years, they would be well advised to also mount a more conventional, ideological indictment of the Republican Party writ large. The GOP is locked into positions on reproductive rights and tax policy that are as unpopular today as they were in 2012 (if not even more so). If a GOP politician wants to force people to give birth, slash taxes on the rich, and “reform” Social Security, their willingness to honor the results of democratic elections shouldn’t count for much.
In 2022, swing voters proved adept at recognizing Republican extremism when it took the form of buffoonish apologists for insurrection. It is possible that the GOP’s standard-bearer will boast that same profile in 2024. But in the event that Trump loses the nomination, Democrats must be ready to help moderates see the radicalism lurking beneath country-club Republican respectability.
It’s long pas time for the Democrats to tie Trumpism to the entire party and make sure people know exactly what that means. It isn’t just rude tweets and bad manners. It’s an entire belief system and network of far right authoritarian operatives. And as the posts below demonstrate, the Republican establishment is very well aware of it and use it to their advantage.