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Republican Campaigning in the Age of Trump
Salena Zito’s latest column, “Trump’s not the reason the GOP sputtered in Ohio,” points to continued failure by Republican operatives to accept the message sent by the voters that they must get to the polls in November. Listen to the candidates and the independent PAC ads in your state. How are they doing? It is a mixed bag here in Arizona, so far, but both serious Republican contenders for the US Senate are proclaiming alignment with President Trump.
Salena Zito points to the importance of demonstrating awareness and concern for local issues. Waving around a few national talking points is not a recipe for success.
To identify with your voters is to be present with your voters. Every Republican House candidate running should be on the ground in their district, discussing local issues and refusing national cookie cutter ads made by people who have never stepped foot on their Main Street.
Whether it’s the suburban mom or the blue-collar worker, voters will be willing to listen and connect with a candidate who makes them feel part of their community — and part of something bigger than themselves.
Part of the challenge for candidates is the legal wall between their campaign and independent PACs that purport to be on their side. Consider the example of an anti-Trump establishment GOP PAC, styling itself “DefendArizona.” The Arizona Republic reported on their entry into this primary season.
On Saturday, DefendArizona, a group led by wealthy Arizona donors who often resisted President Donald Trump early in his 2016 campaign, reported that it was spending $958,000 to oppose former state Sen. Kelli Ward.
[…]
DefendArizona, a relatively new political-action committee, has drawn financial support from GOP fundraisers familiar to Arizona politics, such as Randy Kendrick, Paul Baker and Craig Barrett. The group has also reserved time supporting McSally in the fall.
This group’s bright idea was to run a radio ad on conservative talk stations attacking Kelli Ward for seeking to limit Arizona government cooperation with NSA snooping on Americans. The ad tries to compare the Democrats’ sanctuary cities with the bipartisan popular opposition to the unchecked powers of the NSA. This ad is running at the same time that the Republican base is hearing about FISA abuses, for the purpose of defeating the 2016 Republican presidential candidate, and then to overturn or undermine the election results. So who thought that running scary ads comparing the two, but praising cooperation with the NSA, was a good strategy? What part of the primary electorate is supposed to be motivated?
Note that Jeff Flake’s springboard into politics was with the Goldwater Institute, not an advocate for an unchecked surveillance state. In an article about litigation over the same NSA program, Arizona State Senator Kelli Ward sought to counter with state legislation, and a Goldwater Institute representative was quoted on the side of Article III courts taking jurisdiction over FISA court decisions.
Nick Dranias, director of the Goldwater Institute’s Center for Constitutional Government, says Leon likely does have the power to review FISC cases.
[….]
Dranias, who has argued before the Supreme Court, said “my argument would be that the FISA court would not be a full and fair litigation of the underlying constitutional issues because you don’t have an adversarial process” and also that “the Constitution directly vests Article III courts with the power to decide constitutional issues.”
While an anti-Trump PAC attacks Kelli Ward for failing to uncritically support the NSA, both Ward and McSally are busy posturing as the true Trump supporter. They attack each other as not true conservatives, not true Trump supporters, and not trustworthy on MAGA issues. Reports from other states where President Trump won suggest that successful primary candidates at least are getting that their electorates expect support for the MAGA agenda.
In the Wisconsin race for Senate, both Republican candidates aligned themselves with President Trump and getting results for Wisconsin. State Senator Leah Vukmir won.
During their final debate, neither candidate could come up with one thing Trump had done that they would push back on.
“I look at President Trump’s agenda and say it’s a darn good one,” Nicholson said.
Vukmir said, “a liberal elite and the media want nothing more than to bring this president down. I want to see President Trump succeed. When he succeeds, America succeeds.”
Vukmir’s campaign accords with Salena Zito’s admonition about reaching independents and suburban voters with old-fashioned local issues and face-to-face campaigning.
Down in the polls for months, Vukmir relied on an old-fashioned get-out-the-vote ground game to defeat Kevin Nicholson — and the big money behind him — and claim the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate Tuesday.
[…]
She promised to take the fight to Baldwin in the fall.
“Tammy Baldwin has forgotten about the people of this great state and come November this nurse, this mom with a cause is going to send Tammy Baldwin back to the private sector she doesn’t even know exists,” Vukmir said.
Next door to Wisconsin, Minnesota Republicans chose an upstart over a former governor to be their gubernatorial candidate. As John Hinderaker wrote of the Minnesota primaries:
Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Johnson defeated former Governor Tim Pawlenty for the GOP governor nomination.
[…]
Pawlenty’s campaign was unfocused. He likes to think of himself as a futurist, talking about possible technological breakthroughs that might impact public policy issues. Fine. Meanwhile, Johnson was talking about bread and butter conservative issues: lower taxes, reduced spending, cutting government waste, less regulation, making Minnesota competitive.
Minnesota Republican candidates will have to really step up both the local issues and the MAGA theme to drive turnout in the general election. DFL turnout was about twice the Republican turnout. This matters most to the statewide offices, whereas House districts may serve as breakwaters to a blue wave, causing Democrats to pile up huge margins in some districts while narrowly losing others.
Across the competitive states, successful Republican primary candidates are identifying themselves with President Trump’s voters. This, by itself, will not be enough to win comfortably in November. Good candidates are doing as Candidate Trump did, getting out on the ground and identifying with voters’ issues that have been overlooked. As Salena Zito wrote: “That’s why Trump won in 2016 and forged his coalition in the first place.”
How are your state’s candidates doing?
Published in Elections
I have
Puzzled, @curtnorth. Did you think the above comment was addressed to you? It wasn’t.
@westernchauvinist, what is your read on the Republican gubernatorial candidate in Colorado?
It looks like the House delegation is 4:3 R to D. Hold, pick up or lose?
How are they campaigning?
@curtnorth — Are you tracking any competitive races? Are state and local Republicans name checking Trump? Are you seeing real local issues or national AstroTurf ads and speeches?
Ah, I see your primary election is on the same day as Arizona.
Just saw my name in the header there, no ill intent intended. Three “I” words in a row like that, whoa.
Hat tip to Instapundit for the 2013 flashback:
https://pjmedia.com/blog/two-dems-warn-nsa-violations-just-tip-of-a-larger-iceberg/
@garyrobbins — what is your read on the Arizona gubernatorial race? And what of the Secretary of State race. Do you think Governor Ducey will be in position for cabinet consideration — perhaps Secretary of Labor?
@hypatia — what is your read on races in the state or states you track? Republican candidates getting the right balance of support for the core MAGA voters while pulling in others with local issues?
Evers has the charisma of a reanimated corpse.
But as a creature of Madison (Wisconsin’s swampland analog), bought and paid for by the teachers’ unions, he’s also got a lot of money and power behind him. So . . . while I’m encouraged, I also know that the Original Deep State will be working hard on his behalf. Watch for more dirty tricks than we can count.
Here is an article that argues that Trump’s tweets have an outsize influence in the primaries. While the article is from The New Yorker, it still makes valid points. For better or worse, Trump’s tweets have been a brilliant move, so far. (They could blow up on him with the Mueller Probe, or in the general election.)
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/donald-trumps-grip-on-the-republican-party-just-got-even-tighter
.
I’ve been meaning to look at it and get back to you. Haven’t had a chance yet.
Here’s a pretty good rundown of how the Colorado governor’s race is shaping up. The authors are professors at Colorado College, which I consider to be ridiculously hard Left, but I think they produced a fairly balanced description.
Polis is scary Left to me: Raise the minimum wage, paid family leave, single payer healthcare (it’s a “right” don’t you know? — even though Coloradans voted down single payer by a big margin in a recent election — the Left is relentless and won’t stop until we’ve been completely Californicated), 100% renewable energy by 2040… He promises the world with no consideration for how to pay for it or what it will do to our economy. And he’s been buying his way into Colorado politics for decades.
Stapleton might have to play it down the middle if the CC profs are right about Colorado being negative on Trump. However, he seems to be addressing our local issues effectively (I might be biased) and has a good record as State Treasurer. He’ll have to fight hard against Polis’s money machine, though.
God help us. I really think Polis might drive us (conservatives) out of the state. Not sure where we’d go, though. The country seems to be going insane with all this preference for socialism over capitalism.
Dude.
True. Mr Baker does not have a conservative bone in his body, but like Mr Romney and the several other Repub governors we have had in my 29 years as a Mass resident, they have acted to keep the solidly-Dem legislatures from going completely nuts.
FWIW, there are no statewide races in North Carolina this year. But if the rumors I hear are true, 2020 will one big cluster of candidates running for Governor in 2020 and nobody running for what might be an open Senate seat. But early days.